The Associated Press continues its shakedown of Web giants

We’re breaking our longstanding AP boycott for this story. The Associated Press today reached a new deal with our boys at Yahoo News, giving the wire service more money to host the content from the news service we know and love. Details aren’t being disclosed, but let’s just say that no major changes are taking place as of yet. Oh yeah, Google News hasn’t hosted AP stories since their contract expired in December. Didya know that? You probably didn’t notice, because Google News is that good. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

I believe in the link economy. Please feel free to link to our stories — it adds value to all producers of content. I believe you should play fair and encourage your readers to read-around to what others are producing if you use it and find it interesting.
Thomson Reuters President of Media Chris Ahearn • Providing a breath of fresh air in the whole journalism-linking debate, which AP stoked the fires of over the last few weeks and Rupert Murdoch may continue to light up down the road. Ahern’s attitude towards the situation is a total breath of fresh air and makes us optimistic that some wire services totally get this new media thing. • source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

The slogan that runs at the bottom of each Associated Press story • We copied it from the bottom of one of their articles. Why? Because it’s silly in the day and age of the Internet. Of course it’s going to get copied and redistributed, paraphrased and quoted. It’s how information spreads. But not anymore from us. We quit. This was the last straw. You used to be great, AP, but now you’re just a giant beast of another era. Even your efforts to reach younger customers fail. So, we’re no longer linking to your stories on this site. Or, if we absolutely need to (which, considering the wide variety of content online, we don’t need to), we’ll link to you guys using a NoFollow tag. Think we should do this? Let us know. We’re up for any opinion you have on this matter. We simply want the AP to respect the rights of its audience. It’s only fair.

Posted by Ernie Smith • 5 Comments • Permalink

01 Feb 2010 18:52