It’s been a rough week for the AP’s public image.
First the AP came under fire after announcing it was going to target those who misappropriate AP content. Leading some to believe the AP was about to go to war with google.
Secondly, an AP exec poured fuel on the fire by issuing a cease and desist letter to an affiliate who was embedding AP videos from YouTube on its page. (The AP freely distributes the video content on its YouTube page. Oops!)
Jim Kennedy, the AP’s V.P. of strategic planing, spoke with Peter Kafka at MediaMemo and told him that “To the untrained eye it looks like we’re stupid.”
The AP also released this FAQ about the news from earlier in the week in an effort to clear up some of the confusion.
One of the more interesting parts of this development is the goal of creating “topic pages.” One of the greatest internal struggles at the AP (at least in the mulitmeida circle) is grouping related content across multiple formats for our clients so they can easily identify the entire AP report on a topic.