Some good news from the AP

Submitted by yelvington on July 24, 2006 - 4:39pm

A couple of good-news items from the AP crossed my desk over the weekend:

  • Mac and Firefox support for AP Video. We've all griped about the IE-only, Microsoft-powered AP Video service. In the next few weeks AP will begin beta-testing a new video player that's compatible with non-Microsoft browsers like Firefox and will also run on the Mac. Full rollout is expected in September.
  • More metadata. This has been an itch for as long as I've been working online. The AP board has agreed that AP "should develop digital standards that all news organizations could use for tagging and organizing news content -- text, photos, audio and video. ... The digital standards, much like the AP Stylebook, are key to allowing faster, more accurate search of original news reporting. As part of the effort, AP will start working with a small number of member news organizations on ways to refine the standards and make them more widely available. The board believes that these steps will help news companies improve their online businesses."

Comments

Submitted by Bryan Murley (not verified) on July 24, 2006 - 8:37pm

I'm amazed that AP is just now beta testing such a video player. Unbelievable.

Submitted by Kevin Mireles (not verified) on July 28, 2006 - 1:32am

The lack of standards in this area is abominable. If newspapers want to repurpose and reuse their content, they need to do a much better job of cataloguing it in a way that is easy to either search for or browse for.

I wrote an article for E&P about how newspapers can reuse their archives http://www.kevinmireles.com/Archives.htm and in it I touched on the subject of tagging and the need for standardization, as that's a key to making articles, videos, photos etc... accessible forever, otherwise they just disappear in a clutter of difficult to find content.

So I'm glad to see the AP is going to lead the charge in this endeavor.

Submitted by RC (not verified) on October 9, 2006 - 5:46pm

One AP Q&A article I read, said that 95% of the world uses IE for their web browsing so it made more sense to only develope for the masses. Understood. When my business first opened we originally used PC's, but I was spending most of my IT budget on anti-virus utilites and tech support. That being said, I now run my business with an all Apple Macintosh network, because I can't be down with the 95% masses that are fighting every day viruses, spyware and hackers. If you think for a moment being behind a firewall and having anti-virus software makes you immune to attacks with a PC, then your spending most of your IT budget on PC utilities just to stay one step ahead. Talk to Sunglass Hut, their entire database was wiped out by a hacker. I'll keep my 5%, sleep at night and buy productivity software for my company instead of utilities, antivirus software and consistent updates.