"We know the digital era requires more content, not less," Curley told executives representing AP member newspapers and broadcast companies, at the cooperative's annual meeting. "And it requires content edited and packaged in ways that help user access and allow for advertising placement."

The AP gathering was held on the opening day of the annual convention of the Newspaper Association of America.

Curley showed the conference an example of the AP Online Video Network (see former posting), which debuted last month. This new feature offers any of the news cooperative’s member web sites the ability to broadcast AP video for free and share in advertising revenue generated from the service.

Later this year, AP members will be able to post video created by their own staff and keep the resulting revenue, Curley said.

He said nearly 300 newspapers are subscribing to the AP's "boldest content initiative," the multimedia service called “asap,” aimed at young readers which was recently launched. Recently, AP reporters at the Turin Olympics produced blogs and podcasts, and the cooperative is enhancing both is online and print offerings in sports, financial news, and entertainment.

The AP is working towards ensuring its stories, photos and other products are used properly by search engines and other digital news distributors. Meanwhile, for the cooperative's members, the company is focused on transitioning from satellite delivery to database access and making content available and searchable over the Internet, said Business Week.

Source: Business Week