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Apture has created technology that aims to make flat web pages more three-dimensional: the third dimension being boxes that pop-up to show the reader further multimedia assets relating to an article. At first glance it does not sound too ground-breaking, but taking a closer look, the implications for both readers and publishers are considerable. The Editors Weblog spoke to co-founder and CEO Tristan Harris about how Apture works and how it can help publishers.

Harris described what inspired him to start working on Apture. He and his co-founders came up with the idea while studying at Stanford, during conversations with the Knight Fellows. Frustrated with the fact that despite the web being "truly the richest medium we have ever had to communicate with, with all the computational power and multimedia assets" it has "this flat characteristic of flat story-telling," they decided to try to do something about it.

Easy access to multiple multimedia sources

Apture has created a media search engine that allows writers to "quickly leverage all the media that's available on the web, in many different APIs and digital libraries," Harris explained. The journalist highlights keywords in the text, such as the name of a person, place, event, or a certain topic, and a box will then appear with a list of possible media assets to link to. These include reference tools such as Wikipedia, IMDB, Amazon, Twitter search, even the US Congress, photos from Flickr or Yahoo, videos from YouTube or Daily Motion, maps from Google Maps, documents from Scribd, and the journalist can pick what assets they feel are apppropriate - possibly more than one - and set up a link.

When the reader clicks on the hyperlink, instead of opening in a different browser window, another small box appears to display the article snippet, video, photo or map which the reader can consult without losing their place in the original article. And as Apture allows journalists to clip a specific section of a video or link to a certain quote in a book, the box will hopefully offer them only the most relevant information. Readers can click through to the original site by clicking on a link within the box.

For individual publishers, their own archives and assets can be incorporated into the search engine. Apture has also developed deals with some clients so that any Apture users can access their archives: for example Reuters videos, or snippets from New York Times, BBC or Washington Post articles. Apture just added Google Books and NPR audio podcasts to the asset list.

The technology is free to blogs and websites with fewer than 5 million page views per month. Harris added that as the company is "getting a lot of valuable information from people using it," meaning that the system is getting better and better. Larger publishers pay "hundreds and thousands a month" to use Apture, however. Harris explained that they are willing to do this because the tool creates a "more compelling experience on their websites," as shown by the fact that there is "a proven difference" in user's engagement with pages.

Benefits for publishers

According to Harris, putting one or more Apture links on a page leads to 2 or 3 minutes added engagement time. Looking at Comscore media matrix data, he clarified, it appears that 20 to 30% of publishers' traffic is lost to search. If a paper does not answer a reader's questions, it is extremely easy for the reader to just leave. Harris believes that if journalists are thoughtful and thorough about the links they add throughout a whole site, you could imagine that the publication "may well be able to double the amount of time spent on the site." And obviously, more time spent on the site means more advertising money.

As well as this financial benefit, Harris described a less tangible but arguably equally valuable advantage of using Apture: the fact that it allows newspapers to be a more effective guide for their readers and to offer them a more coherent reading experience. When a paper sends their readers away, either by linking to an external source or just not providing enough information, it is "severing its relationship with you as your guide to that information." By using Apture to supply necessary background information in multiple different formats while keeping the reader on its site, a news organisation can "be the guide to an entire web's worth of resources, but retain a relationship with that reader," Harris asserted. The fact that publishers are "the owners of that relationship" puts "a lot more power in their hands," he added.

For those publishers contemplating offering their content back to Apture, one concern might be that by displaying their content in boxes on other sites via Apture, they could end up losing traffic. Harris stressed, however, that readers can always go back to the source, and that rather than trying to remove traffic from websites, Apture sees its role as "providing an opportunity for those media partners to get their content in front of new eyeballs that they would not have seen before."

What next?

"What we are really doing is creating an efficiency in the market that really wasn't there before," Harris concluded. Apture is connecting information "in a way that wasn't possible before." He said that the company intends to improve its current product by continuing to integrate new content partners and bring costs down. He also hopes to create new products that will "transform the medium, changing the way that people interact with the web," and which are "not constrained to the two dimensions that we've had up until now."

The advantages offered by online journalism are numerous, and products such as Apture's should be welcomed by journalists striving to find better ways to tell their story in a multimedia environment. The fact that the Internet allows us to see, hear or find out more about pretty much anything and consequently make a story richer and more meaningful is something which papers should take advantage of. Arguably, going a step further and creating their own new multimedia experiences should be a priority for newspapers, but using existing content to supplement their articles is a good start. 

The struggles of many American newspapers have been well documented recently, the closure of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's transition to online-only being two of the more high profile stories. Yet European newspapers seem so far to have avoided the plight of their US counterparts. Writing for the New York Times, Eric Pfanner describes how despite Europe facing similar problems to the US "a few newspaper publishers have found innovative ways not only to survive, but thrive in the face of the recession and the Internet."

Oslo based publisher Schibsted earns "about a quarter of the company's revenue and the vast majority of its profit" from online activities. VG Nett is the website of Schibsted's daily tabloid Verdens Gang, and boasts a profit margin of over 30% as well as rivalling Google as the most popular site in Norway. German publisher Axel Springer generates 14% of its revenue online, which is a higher percentage than most publishers in the more digitally developed US manage, and is currently in the position to search for "undervalued assets" to buy.

The Society of Editors and the Newspaper Society have sent British Culture Secretary Andy Burnham a list of urgent action points to help the UK local media industry survive problems caused by the recession and the changing media industry. Nigel Pickover, Society of Editors president, and Michael Pelosi, Newspaper Society president, wrote the letter in response to a request from Burnham at a meeting with the presidents last week.

According to the Guardian, the chief concern of the two groups is that Google and other online news aggregators are profiting from paid local media content. "The biggest cost is gathering news in the first instance; comment may be free but facts are expensive," said Bob Satchwell, director of the Society of Editors. "If advertising is attracted to aggregators but not going to the people that originate the news, then the problem needs to be considered."

The Associated Press suspended the use of US military photos on November 14th after the US Government body distributed doctored photographs of General Ann E. Dunwoody, the first female four star General in US history. This is the second hand out photograph that has been altered by the US army in a matter of months. The fact that a government institution would manipulate a photograph begs the question: can we trust what we see?

The Editors Weblog spoke to Santiago Lyon, the Director of Photography at AP about the events surrounding this suspension and the issue of photo manipulation.

First case - flag appears

Lyon reports that when Dunwoody was promoted, the AP searched for an image of the new General on a US military website that gathers photos of armed services personnel. Unable to locate a photograph, the AP contacted the website and requested a photograph and subsequently received a picture of the General by email. This photo showed Dunwoody with a US flag behind her (the photo on the right). The photo was immediately passed to the editing desk (all AP photographs go through at least one editing desk) where it was vetted and examined; it was then released onto the wire.  The San Antonio Express-News, a Texas-based local newspaper, contacted the AP alerting them to the fact that they had found a very similar image of Dunwoody on Google images, but with no US flag behind her (both photos shown above). Lyon and his team immediately investigated and discovered that a member of US military staff had added the US flag background and changed the number of stars on her uniform from three to four. The photograph was then immediately removed from the AP's wire.

Second case - superimposing a head
 
This was the second such incident involving the US army in a matter of months. The AP collects headshots of all the US personnel that have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and as part of this effort the AP received a photo that on closer inspection was not what it appeared. The army had the cut out the face of the dead soldier in question from one photo and superimposed it onto an existing mug shot with a uniform and an American flag in the background.

Lyon says, "Because this had been the second incident in as many months, we decided to suspend the use of US military photographs while we examined our own internal policies as well as have a conversation with the US military about what they were doing to these pictures and how this was unacceptable."

Army were, "at a loss to explain it"

Surprisingly when Lyon contacted the military to complain about this incident, it did not appear to accept the gravity of the situation. Lyon reports, "Initially they were a little bit defensive, claiming that this photo did not really alter the substance of the image. Our policy is of course zero tolerance, we do not accept that images be manipulated or that content be added or subtracted more specifically, unless there is a pressing need to for security reasons for example, and in that event we flag this." In further conversations, the army were, "at a loss to explain it." Lyon goes on to say, "I was shocked, but we wanted to deal with it as forcefully as possible and put it behind us."

The Pentagon later told the AP that they would redistribute their guidelines again to staff, which are also firm on the issue of manipulation. Lyon says, "They pretty much admitted that there had been a mistake and that they weren't proud about it, and that they wanted to work with us to try and ensure that this does not happen again."

As a result, the AP has now strengthened its internal policies with regard "hand-out" images (images that it receives from non-AP staff and external bodies). "We have instituted a more rigorous policy of examining those images now, at least two editors have to examine the images closely and if there is any doubt at all, the image is then held pending further examination." Previously, the standard procedure was to examine all images but not in the kind of minute detail that they do now with hand out images. Lyon reports that the AP receives vast numbers of these hand out images from various bodies, including the police, industry and so forth. AP staff know its strict zero tolerance policy for photo manipulation, but is it something that these external organisations adhere to?

In recent weeks not only do we have the AP case, but also the issue of a French Government minister and a disappearing and reappearing diamond ring. A Le Figaro front-page photo of Justice Minister Rachida Dati was doctored to erase a substantial diamond ring she was wearing. The practise of photo manipulation is nothing new: in 1942 Mussolini had a horse handler removed from a photograph of him sitting on a horse in order to make him look more heroic.

As long as there has been photography, there have been photo manipulations. However, with advanced technology and increased use of photo shop, it is now easier to achieve and harder to detect. Lyon says, "It is the click of a mouse and you can add or subtract things from a photo quite easily. What that means for an organisation like ours, whose whole reputation is based on the voracity of the information and telling the truth, is that we have to be ever vigilant." These incidences raise the question of how often these doctored images make it onto our front pages - unintentionally in the case of AP and intentionally in the case of Le Figaro  - as we generally only hear of this when the culprits are caught out. Can we now trust what we see? "You see images that are printed by others and are you always sure of the truthfulness of what you are looking at? It's hard to say. Sometimes you look at an image and you wonder," say's Lyon on the issue.

Lyon says that the Dunwoody image has highlighted the problem to AP. "What this has done is that it has shown us the need to be as vigilant and as careful as possible with hand out images from third parties whose provenance we cannot be 100% sure of. It has heightened our vigilance."

Today's newspaper reader is well aware that anything can be done with an image, even if it is just from their experiences watching the magic of CGI at their local multiplex. However, this is an arena where they expect the full trickery of the camera to be on display, the public does not expect it when they open the newspaper.

Due to the Internet and various other factors, "there has been a huge increase in the number of images that are being sent by international news agencies. 20-years ago we were probably sending 100 images a day in a 24-hour period. Now we are closer to sending 3,000 images in a 24-hour period. When you do the maths, the news agencies are handling close to a million images a year. That's a huge amount of imagery." This increase in distribution and use of photographs highlights the need for there to be strict rules on the doctoring of photographs. The role of a photojournalist is to capture a story for the reader, to bring a story to life, and to tell the truth. Just because we have the technology to do something, it  doesn't mean we should.

Source: AP, Straits Times, National Press Photographers Association, Ethics of Digital Manipulation, Daily Tech

Search Wiki is the newest feature to Google, allowing users to customize search results, and is available only to users with Google accounts.

The feature will allow users to rearrange search results, tailored to what they frequently use, according to Brand Republic.  

Users will also be able to add and remove URLs relevant to their own searches.  They can make notes on sites that will be "available for future searches."

Search Wiki allows users to "share insights with other searchers," said an engineer behind the project.

Source:  Brand Republic

Google is dropping a section of the licensing agreement for the new Chrome browser after complaints.

Google reported yesterday that it is removing the section that gave the company, "a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through" the new browser.

Shortly after Chrome was launched users raised concerns about the language in the copyright. Some critics said the language would allow Google to use any Web content displayed in Chrome without copyright permission.

Google has indicated that this is a misunderstanding, and that it simply borrowed language from other products, "in order to keep things simple for our users," when it inserted the copyright provision in the Chrome license.

Source: PC World

A landmark judgement in the ongoing battle between Viacom and Google found in Viacom's favor on Wednesday. Google will now have to give Viacom the record of every video watched by YouTube users, its users' names and IP addresses. Google bought YouTube in 2006.

Viacom wants the data to try and prove that videos that are reproduced illegally are more popular than user-generated footage. This could increase Google's liability if found guilty of contributory infringement.

Google say that they are not liable, as they have complied with any requests to remove videos that infringe copyright. Google also argue that handing over the data is an invasion of privacy for its users.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said that the ruling, "threatens to expose deeply private information." They go on to say that it is a direct violation of the Video Privacy Act.

Viacom filed suit in 2007 and are seeking $1bn in damages.

Source: European Journalism Centre

Copiepresse, a copyright group for Belgian newspapers, is suing Google for up to €49.1 million for displaying links to the publishers' content on Google News, the company's news search engine.

Copiepresse additionally requests that Google publish the court's ruling for 20 days on Google's Belgian website and news.Google.be. For each day Google fails to do so, Copiepresse seeks a €1 million fine.

Google News compiles links to news stories customized to fit users' searches, a service, Copiepresse complains, that allows Google to steal advertising profits away from the newspapers.

This is the second time in the past two years Copiepresse has sued Google. A February 2007 court ruling mandated that Google remove all links from its website and pay Copiepresse damages.

In related news, Google responded today to another grievance being brought against the company, Viacom's lawsuit against the Google-owned YouTube, calling it a "threat to the flow of information on the web."

Click here for further coverage of Copiepresse's lawsuit.

Source: Bloomberg News through EJC, Boston Globe

In an excellent article, Editor & Publisher’s (E&P) Joe Strupp gathers 12 important lessons learned from online flops and failures, such as… 

Belgian French-language newspapers, which had sued Google over its use of their copyrighted content, are back on Google. The papers agreed that Google could link stories to their websites.

More from the UK Guardian's Changing media Summit. User Generated Content (UGC), copyright and community engagement are the main discussion topics for this session.

 
Today Google is set to appear in a Belgium court to defend itself against allegations from local newspapers that the company stole content from their web sites.  In an earlier ruling the court based in Brussels ordered Google to remove Belgian-French language content from its news index with a penalty of €1 million a day fines for not complying.

The world's most popular search engine has come under a lot of fire from traditional publishers, even being charged €1million per day in Belgium for failing to remove copyrighted content from its news aggregator, Google News. Most recently at the Society of Editors' annual conference in Glasgow, CEO of Press Holdings, Andrew Neil, called for more negotiations with Google.

After the French news agency AFP sued Google for $17.5 million in damages last year, Google agreed to stop posting AFP content on its news aggregator. But as it turns out, AFP is still there.

Amidst widespread criticism of Chinese censorship of the internet and of the US internet giants that have caved into this censorship (see previous postings here and here), the Chinese government defended its policies, claiming it complies with international norms. Liu Zhengrong, China's deputy chief of internet affairs added that Western criticism of his country's practices is hypocritical since China "is being no different from Western nations."

Google defends itself against accusations of unethical behavior after it emerged that news reports filed by the British National Party are being listed as sources on its Google News website, in one case as the first source, alongside stories from BBC and Reuters and other news organizations. This comes at the same times as the party's leader Nick Griffin is facing charges of "inciting racial hatred".

At the WEF conference, and the sessions are starting: Krishna Bharat(Google News) and Dan Gillmor (Bayosphere) are the first speakers, with our own Andrew Nachison moderating a session with Joi Ito, Barry Sussman, and others. WEF leader Betrand Pequerie is introducing Krishna Bharat, who speaks first.
Krishna started Google News, which he created two years ago, and is currently finishing up the establishment of an Indian office for Google in Bangalore. He's explaining Google's desire to organize the world's information, and their desire to be the information intermediary for users and says that Google News is basically that information applied to news. 'We're very keen for everyone to participate in all our projects,' says Bharat, "And we certainly want that to be true of news."
Two years ago, he wrote a program for himself that crawled and aggregated news; that project was the basis for Google News.
Bharat shows clips from Google that brings related stories together; he talks a bit about the clustering technology that groups stories, the crawler, and related links/terms. He explains there are algorithms that help to prioritize stories, and others that map a story to particular categories. He also talks about filtering technologies--how Google News can decide what a story is actually about, and what editions the story is slotted for.
The first version launched in Dec 2001; most recent upgrade was March 2005's customized news upgrades.
The attributes Bharat values include publishing multiple viewpoints from multiple sources, an objectivity that a local editor might lack (he says), and efficent ways to manage news flow via alerts, personalization and of course, clustering.
"I see us as an integral part of the news community, says Bharat. "We bring value to the news community, and our clustering removes the intertia that people have in going from one news site to another.
"Our relationship with newspapers is symbiotic; we sent traffic directly to the content provider and we do not have special relationships, and we amplify the amount of news being read."
"I am hoping, he says,|" to have all newspapers participate with Google News; for our readers we want an interesting debate that makes them think."

The audience is listening intently, and yet there are whispers in the corners that make me wonder if this is familiar information--or exotic jargon--to them.
(Applause)

After being legally summoned by Agence France Presse (see former posting), Google has begun to remove the French agencies content from GoogleNews. A law suit in which AFP demands US17.5m in damages in addition to this removal was filed last Thursday and is predicted to have repercussions for GoogleNews if other new agencies begin to follow in AFP's path, refusing to allow Google to publish it's copyrighted material. This would result in a serious restructuring of GoogleNews, could possibly have similar effects on other aggregators, and could lead major news companies to distinguish themselves from the plethora of news sources on the Internet ultimately making it easier for these companies to charge for their online content. It is not yet known whether Google will have to pay the desired damages, nor when the search engine will complete removal of AFP's content.

Sources: Poynter and Digital media news for Europe

After being legally summoned by Agence France Presse (see former posting), Google has begun to remove the French agencies content from GoogleNews. A law suit in which AFP demands US17.5m in damages in addition to this removal was filed last Thursday and is predicted to have repercussions for GoogleNews if other new agencies begin to follow in AFP's path, refusing to allow Google to publish it's copyrighted material. This would result in a serious restructuring of GoogleNews, could possibly have similar effects on other aggregators, and could lead major news companies to distinguish themselves from the plethora of news sources on the Internet ultimately making it easier for these companies to charge for their online content. It is not yet known whether Google will have to pay the desired damages, nor when the search engine will complete removal of AFP's content.

Sources: Poynter and Digital media news for Europe