AP, Attributor Content Tracking Moves Are Solid First Steps
Important Details: Two significant announcements signal news publishers’ renewed efforts to gain better control of their content as we move on to the next stage of the Internet.
The Associated Press announced a new “registry” and “beacon” program, aiming at better tracking of news content, first its own content and then members’ newspaper content:
- A new registry, growing out of AP’s digital cooperative content repository, will keep track of electronic tags applied to stories (and later, other content types). Those tags, in part, will specify allowed uses of the content.
- AP will begin, probably by November, to bundle its text stories in an “informational wrapper.” That wrapper includes a beacon that will send information to the AP registry whenever content is accessed. Data focuses on content usage, but does not include personal user information. The data will let the AP know whether Web sites posting the material hold licensing rights or not.
- After successfully loading AP content into the new system, the co-op will begin making the service available for member newspapers in 2010.
That set of decisions was approved by the AP board — made up of newspaper company CEOs — last week, and reinforces the idea that the industry is working with renewed energy on collaborative, industry-wide solutions. At the same time, the Newspaper Association of America has been hosting numerous meetings and analyzing monetization proposals (Journalism Online, CircLabs, Attributor, ViewPass) recently pitched to members. Simultaneously, news companies are talking with the Christine Varney, the new Department of Justice anti-trust chief, working through the questions of how much and in what ways beleaguered publishers can work together without engaging the wrath of the the anti-trust authorities.
Also, last week, Attributor (see Insights, “Attributor Brings Ad Rev Share to Anti-Piracy,” April 22, 2009) announced that 50% of the top 25 papers by circulation in the U.S. have agreed to “test” its “Fair Share Consortium” notion. The test consists of sending full feeds of news content to Attributor’s repository (now 30 million stories and growing), so that Attributor can use its tracking technology. Then, it will be able to provide a 30-day snapshot to publishers on how much illegal use of their content it finds. If it makes its case successfully to publishers, it will then try to contract them into the consortium system. That system, which will entail ad networks paying publishers when their content is found on websites that have not licensed the content, is dependent on ad network participation. So far, Attributor has signed up two second-tier networks, one of which is AdBrite, but has yet to get Google or Yahoo to agree. The consortium notion starts with strong, committed participation, including that of Reuters and DPA, the German press agency.
DPA’s particpation is noteworthy in that it portends still another collaborative twist.
While DPA is using Attributor to track — and hopefully better monetize — its own content, it is also serving as the main reseller of Attributor and the consortium in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, taking the product to newspapers and magazines. Beyond reselling the service, DPA will create a set of content-tracking services and reports for those who sign on, Meinolf Ellers, managing director of DPA InfoCom, the agency’s multimedia arm, told Outsell. As with AP’s registry-and-beacon push, Ellers says that “the first step is to learn how your content is performing….Attributor puts a gun in your hand. You have to consider when to shoot.”
AP’s own relationship with Attributor is a nuanced one. It was one of Attributor’s early customers, and still uses the company’s services, though it has not signed on to the ad rev share consortium. As it moves forward with its registry-and-beacon program, both companies must work out the nature of their relationship.
Implications: If you can’t track it, you can’t monetize it fairly. First and foremost, know where your property, your intellectual property, your lifeblood is living and breathing. That’s the simple message Outsell derives from both initiatives.
How the tracking is used will prompt the next set of questions.
Attributor’s approach is to allow monetization of unlicensed use through cooperation and revenue sharing with ad networks. AP, as a wire service deriving the bulk of its revenues from licensing content, rather than monetizing through ad selling, is preparing for a set of new strategies. The AP move (with the unhelpful “Beacon” name being the same as Facebook’s ill-fated attempt to identify customers) has been castigated by some in the blogosphere as the company’s attempt to crack down on individuals. It’s unlikely that will be the case. Rather, greater knowledge of content use — licensed and unlicensed, large-scale and small-scale — will then enable AP and member papers who join in the program to act on that information, that data, with more intelligence. Still, AP faces a public relations challenge that could get out of hand unless the reading public and press understands the intent of the new program.
Outsell believes that the intent of the program is directionally right. Currently, too many companies are flying blind through the ever-complex web. If the technology works as planned, the registry could help level the playing field.
These should be considered first moves, foundational to news companies’ efforts to better monetize their content as they re-work portal relatisonships and contracts, and deal with mobile and e-reader opportunities, among many others.
The set of developments also offers three other insights into how the world is evolving:
- Wire services are no longer “wire” services. Reuters early on supported Attributor’s push, as Reuters Media CEO Chris Ahearn made the point that the plan “seems to me to be a way to bring order out of the chaos.” Both AP and DPA are using tracking systems and services to redefine themselves and their value propositions to their long-time customers.
- Content companies are trying to make sense of their relationships with technology providers. AP clearly appreciates the value of Attributor technology, but in the next generation of the web it wants the content creator/technology vendor relationship to be properly structured and sized. That’s a struggle shared across both the new content and content-facing technology industries.
- Attributor’s immediate push and AP’s longer-term push focus more attention on Google, and its super-sized role in the news world. The Department of Justice is already scrutinizing Google’s book digitization agreement. Given the company’s major roles in news-related traffic generation and related ad monetization, other questions may soon be asked. In refusing so far to sign on to the Attributor consortium, it is so far maintaining a path above the fray, rather than helping to solve basic issues, none more basic than widespread illegal use. It’s surprising that Google, even in its own self-interest, isn’t moving forward — yet — to work on new ways to solve “piracy” issues. Those issues seem less knotty than working out a fairer revenue sharing plan with news companies (Insights, “Google and Newspapers: Beyond Fair Use to Fair Share,” April 10, 2009)