iAP the news aggregator
The Associated Press would build a search engine that aggregates news like Google's. My first instinct is to say "No!" "Buy don't build" and "Push your content out to where your users are, don't try to pull them in."
But with Google sagging, and its algos not completely knocking off my socks anymore, particularly in the area of news, I say, why not?
Consider AP's plan a "disruptive innovation," on the low end. What if it aggregated valuable local and global content and found a way to analyze that news and make meaning out of it? Which local newspapers are most influential? Could AP create a proprietary "NewsRank" for international sources? How great would it be to find similarities between in coverage between Detroit's and Wolfburg's city papers?
For more on this story, see Businessweek. Unlike the NYT and WSJ, who treat this as a saga of the dying newspaper industry, Businessweek's coverage of the AP more accurately treats this as a David/Goliath story focusing on the AP's operations and management.
And if I may, as a former AP'er: Please guys, get out of the tower and re-integrate yourselves with your communities. It's about the people and having an identity in the place you cover. Go "Hyperlocal." See my next post, or simply this a.m.'s NYT business section.
But with Google sagging, and its algos not completely knocking off my socks anymore, particularly in the area of news, I say, why not?
Consider AP's plan a "disruptive innovation," on the low end. What if it aggregated valuable local and global content and found a way to analyze that news and make meaning out of it? Which local newspapers are most influential? Could AP create a proprietary "NewsRank" for international sources? How great would it be to find similarities between in coverage between Detroit's and Wolfburg's city papers?
For more on this story, see Businessweek. Unlike the NYT and WSJ, who treat this as a saga of the dying newspaper industry, Businessweek's coverage of the AP more accurately treats this as a David/Goliath story focusing on the AP's operations and management.
And if I may, as a former AP'er: Please guys, get out of the tower and re-integrate yourselves with your communities. It's about the people and having an identity in the place you cover. Go "Hyperlocal." See my next post, or simply this a.m.'s NYT business section.
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