The Associated Press today announced to partnerships that will be of interest to SEO-minded bloggers:
Under the first, Technorati Inc., the leading search engine for blog postings, will provide links to blogs that cite AP stories.
The AP also will assist search engine Topix.net, controlled by three major newspaper companies, in sending readers directly to the sites of newspapers when stories in the AP report are based primarily on material from those members.
The deals highlight efforts by AP, a not-for-profit cooperative owned by U.S. news organizations, to help member newspapers and broadcasters in a world where many people get their news from the free-wheeling and chaotic Web. ("The free-wheeling and chaotic web." I love it! We're all a bunch of party animals out here in Cyberspace, aren't we, kids?)
Technorati will search blogs for postings that include links to AP stories. Links to those postings will be available along with the original AP stories on 440 member Web sites served by AP Hosted News, a service that uses AP servers to display AP content on member sites. There also will be a box featuring the "Top Five Most Blogged About" AP stories.
Clicking on the links takes the reader to a Technorati page listing the relevant blogs. Revenue from ads on the page will be shared by Technorati and the AP, but the revenue is not expected to cover more than the cost of the project, said Kristie Bouryal, AP's deputy director of online for U.S. newspapers.
Well, this is certainly another big step for Web 2.0. AP buy-in certainly legitimizes blogs even more, and also further muddies the line between press and blogger:
"The truth is there are not that many of us who are breaking news anymore, that have people on the ground ... the whole notion here is to spotlight those who are real content creators and not make news such a generic commodity on the Web," [Jane] Seagrave [AP's vice president of new media] said.
The move is also beneficial for Topix, which is not among the more popular news sites, currently.
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