Online Newspapers Do Something Right For A Change

from the tell-AP-to-shove-it dept

Earlier this month, the Associated Press launched a streaming video offering for its partner newspapers, so they could offer video on their websites. There was just one problem: it only worked on Microsoft IE on Windows. While Microsoft still has the majority of the browser market share, that’s still an odd decision. Firefox and other browsers do have enough marketshare to matter at this point, especially among early adopters and the type of people you’d want to watch the video. The same is true of the Mac community. This raised a lot of discussion online, and it appears that at least one newspaper company has turned down the AP until they figure out how to make the service cross-platform compatible. It’s nice to see a newspaper willing to stand up for its users — as this seems like the type of story that could just generate a lot of discussion, without the newspapers actually doing anything, leaving the AP to stick with it’s Windows IE-only policy.


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Comments on “Online Newspapers Do Something Right For A Change”

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18 Comments
Tech says:

That's the AP for you.

This is par for the course for the AP. When they came out with their pciture service, on the web, it ws the same way. After about 2 years, it could be used on other platforms and with other browsers. They promise to get a service out by a certain date and NEVER make that date. This is the result. I am surprised, though, that a newspaper would not take the service. They must not be on the board of directors, or low on the list of meber newspapers. AP is run BY it’s membership which is mainly newspapers.

discojohnson says:

FTA, “‘The issue isn’t Microsoft’s business practices,’ he wrote. ‘The issue is a decision by Associated Press that the immediacy of revenue from Microsoft’s ad network is more important than the fact that X percent of people using AP member sites will not be able to view its product (at least, not initially). When we [at Network World] decided on a video platform, we went with Flash because of the cross-browser compatibility. But we have a dedicated sales staff (in a niche market) so we didn’t face the revenue issues described by AP. Our first advertiser? Microsoft.’

that is exactly why it’s an IE based product. this forum is finished.

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