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Sunday
Feb212010
AP is Visionary: They See a "Siteless Web"
Young Urban Professional
TechCrunch reports that the Associated Press is using their Twitter account to push their followers to their Facebook page. On that hub they syndicate many stories blog posts and dispatches as full text. Unlike Danny Sullivan (here and here), I think this is a downright brilliant and visionary move. What's more it's a natural for a wire service like AP. Here's why.
AP sees that the future of media is headless, which I wrote about here six months ago. Paul Gillin echos my thoughts and calls this the siteless web.
Wire services like AP and Reuters have in one sense flourished since the dawn of the consumer Internet. You can't visit a news site without running into one of their stories. Often, some of the featured and more popular stories on Yahoo News (an underrated news giant) are from wire services. However, there's an inherent problem today with that model and this approach tries to solve it.
As wires like AP and Reuters syndicate their content everywhere, they have struggled to build any kind of meaningful relationship with readers. In some ways they've become so ubiquitous they're commodity. Others, like the New York Times, have done a much better job by offering benefits to registered members - but also with a lot more investment and infrastructure.
The AP is now changing the game for news by not only going where attention spirals are taking us but by also using their content to curate a conversation on Facebook and - above all - build relationships.
As of this writing, the AP page on Facebook has 9,400 fans. I bet this will grow over time as people spend more time on Facebook and slowly become more accustomed to getting their news there, in addition to friend updates, games,etc. Swap out the word fans and replace it with subscribers and suddenly you can see where I am going and why this is a smart idea. It's CRM for news!
Over the weekend Robert French from Auburn and I have been debating on Google Buzz the value of Facebook as a news source. It does have a ways to go but it's coming. Six years ago, as an experiment, I lived off blogs as my sole news source. I might try that again with Facebook. I continue to be impressed with how media companies are starting to experiment and the utter richness of the conversation that occurs in a very navigable, digestible format.
LATER:: In response to this post, Viki asks on Buzz if I see a similar future for Google Buzz. In a word, yes. With content infinite and attention finite, the media will go where people are. This includes Twitter, Buzz and YouTube. The media is already all over Buzz - case in point, the Huffington Post. However Facebook is the 800 pound gorilla - for now.
Reader Comments (43)
The key principle to me here is "go where the people are". That's what this is all about and I agree with Steve on that even as a not so enthusiastic FB user who finds their UI less than intuitive and too cluttered.
"The Cluetrain Manifesto" said it perfectly more than ten years ago: markets are conversations. With the Web fostering conversations everywhere, brands are built in trusted conversations. AP is late to the game in this, but they are beginning to experiment at least with the concept.
@John So if I am hearing you correctly. A brand is more than an organisation and a URL, its ultimately an idea in people's heads. Thus it can find identity in a completely location and platform agnostic fashion? The business model is still the challenge, and with increasing attention deficits I wonder if people might purposely choose to consume content they have to pay even a small amount in exchange for a much higher level of signal to noise and significantly less advertising...
AP is Visionary: They See a "Siteless Web" -- I understand what they're trying to do but I'm not sure this is it. I have to reflect on the idea a little more.
I believe that musicians were the first to start going “siteless,” and they’ve been doing it for quite some time. Over a year ago, while flipping through a music magazine (remember those?) I noticed that almost every band advertisement didn’t direct to a website, but rather a myspace page. I thought about it and it made sense – with so many platforms out there that allow you to post pictures, music, show dates and band information – as well as serve as a built-in community for fans – for free, why would a band bother putting the resources into developing their own website? Now, other industries are starting to catch on, and it’s a very interesting movement. I wonder if more and more website designers are shifting or will shift towards application development for social media sites.
It's a bit annoying that - unlike you - TechCrunch has not corrected their misstatement which was a big part of their argument: "The AP obviously has a ton of media partners, and they could easily link to any of those, or even the story hosted on their own site. But no, instead they’re copying all these stories to their Facebook page and linking there for no apparent reason."
If all they're doing is trying to encourage their Twitter Followers to join their Facebook Fan Page, then I see absolutely no fault at all in this experiment.
AP's stated long term approach is more about punishing fans with DRM than empowering them...http://www.niemanlab.org/category/themes/ap-plan/http://boingboing.net/2009/07/29/associated-press-drm.htmlMaybe they've rethought their strategy. In such a (relatively) short timespan, that would be impressively agile. Or maybe someone within the company managed to get permision to experiement on Facebook, and this doesn't signal a major shift.
I can't find Reuters on Facebook......Or rather, I've found hundreds but I don't know which one's the Real Slim Shady
Dear Steve, was wondering if you had a FB Fan page? Thanks in advance .
thanks for the advice good post
Fb is deleting pages left n rite. I donno whats up with them
A siteless web is something quite difficult to get your head around.
It is obvious that you have put alot of effort into this! I thought I'd just leave a quick message saying good job!!
This is really visionary and intriguing as well to wonder how it would look like a siteless web. This has really given me some good inputs to ponder while i'm on my tub...
It's a bit annoying that - unlike you - TechCrunch has not corrected their misstatement which was a big part of their argument: "The AP obviously has a ton of media partners, and they could easily link to any of those, or even the story hosted on their own site. But no, instead they’re copying all these stories to their Facebook page and linking there for no apparent reason."
This has really given me some good inputs thank you
The AP obviously has a ton of media partners, and they could easily link to any of those, or even the story hosted on their own site. But no, instead they’re copying all these stories to their Facebook page and linking there for no apparent reason.