Innovation Toolkit

AP is working to increase value for members, finding ways to innovate and helping them do it. We’ve rolled out innovative tools, products and services to ensure you have fast, easy and reliable access to the news you want. Together, we’re exploring new products and platforms that create new revenue opportunities and capitalize on the value of the cooperative.

>>IMPLEMENTATION TOOLS

Member Choice Innovation Toolkit
To jump-start your innovation efforts, we’ve collected early examples of members making use of expanded Member Choice content to build new newspaper sections, niche Web pages and streamline editing and production work. We’ve compiled a step-by-step outline, complete with screen grabs, PDFs and member comments on each of the Member Choice/Exchange innovations we’ve seen so far.

>Download the Product guide (Update 03/05, PDF 1.8 MB XLS, 88 MB)
>Download the toolkit (Update 11/12, PDF 2.77 MB)
>Share your best examples, e-mail digitalcooperative@ap.org
>Download a case study of the Idaho State Journal

>>RESEARCH TOOLS

Outsell research
AP is offering newspaper members free access to research and news about the digital transformation of the media from Outsell Inc., a leading research firm in the news and information industry. The new information service will provide AP newspaper members with a series of quarterly major reports over the next year, as well as a continuing stream of news and analysis from Outsell. The company, based in California, tracks news and developments across a wide spectrum of the industry, from search engines and aggregators to news companies and vertical information providers. The service is available at no charge to newspaper members who have joined the AP Digital Cooperative, the consortium of newspapers who have enrolled in AP’s content enrichment program.

> Press release:AP to provide Outsell research to members
> Outsell's service for AP members:Outsell FAQ (PDF 32K)
> On the Net: http://www.outsellinc.com/

A New Model for News Consumption – Research Report
The study from AP and Context-Based Research Group, an ethnographic research firm with a global network of cultural anthropologists, examines news consumption patterns of young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 in Britain, India and the United States.  The key findings and proposed model will help news organizations better meet the needs of today’s media consumers.

> Press Release:Younger Consumers Struggle with News Fatigue
> Download the complete report (PDF 3.4 MB)

>>TRAINING TOOLS

TUESDAYS: AP Member Marketplace (30 minutes)
Pacific – 11 a.m., Mountain – 12 noon, Central – 1 p.m., Eastern – 2 p.m.
Sharing regionally relevant and topical news is an area of great interest for many newspapers in many states, and AP Member Marketplace is the fastest and most efficient way to make it possible. The Marketplace service in AP Exchange also offers the ability to send e-mail alerts, to quickly update, correct or kill content, to store content and publish it at a later date and to see statistics on how popular one paper's content is with other papers in the state. Marketplace is available at no cost to AP members.

WEDNESDAYS: AP WebFeeds and WebFeeds Manager (60 minutes)
Pacific – 10 a.m., Mountain – 11 a.m., Central – 12 noon, Eastern – 2 p.m.
AP WebFeeds and the AP WebFeeds Manager offer your AP content delivered over the Web in a new format that allows great flexibility. Editors will find WebFeeds not only deliver text, photos, graphics, video and audio, but also contain rich metadata, which allows automatic sorting of news into hundreds of topics demanded by readers and advertisers. Plus, production teams can configure WebFeeds to save on bandwidth and storage.

THURSDAYS: AP Exchange (30 minutes – morning or afternoon option)
Pacific – 8 a.m./1:30 p.m., Mountain – 9 a.m./2:30 p.m., Central – 10 a.m./3:30 p.m., Eastern – 11 a.m./4:30 p.m.
AP Exchange is a powerful online tool offering access to AP’s vast database of content. Knowing how to run effective searches will help you find news that is most meaningful to your beat, audiences, story or market. AP’s School of Search training session offers search tips and tricks, many of which can be used in any search engine, not just AP Exchange.

>Download the AP Exchange Search (PDF 200k)
>Download the AP Exchange Saved Search (PDF 209k)
>Download the AP Exchange Cheat Sheet (PDF42k)

To participate in any of the training sessions:

Go to www.webdialogs.com/join

Conference ID: 95552

Then dial 866-206-0240 with conf. ID 965 385#


>Download more information about online training

>>SWAT Team

AP's SWAT Team was formed at the beginning of 2008 to spearhead the rollout of the database-driven Member Choice service. Headed by Kansas City chief Randy Picht, the team also includes Oregon chief Bryan Brumley and assistant chiefs Nancy Nussbaum, Barry Bedlan, Maryann Mrowca and Mark Rochester from Ohio, Texas, Atlanta and San Francisco. Over the past few months, SWAT members have crisscrossed the United States and conducted scores of Web-based training sessions for members who are interested in using Member Choice to its full potential. Learning as they trained, SWAT members have expanded their knowledge to technical integration questions, a specialty for Mrowca, and the sharing of material among members through AP MarketPlace and State News Exchange, Brumley's bailiwick. If you're interested in SWAT Team training contact your AP Chief of Bureau. AP Chief of Bureau.