From AdAge:
The Associated Press is developing an app it hopes will help newspapers keep their hands on a key source of their print revenue — circulars and coupon inserts — as readers increasingly read papers on iPads, smartphones and other devices.

The AP’s app, tentatively dubbed iCircular, is actually meant to work in conjunction with the AP’s white-label app platform, which member newspapers can use to publish apps under their own brands. Jane Seagrave, senior VP-chief revenue officer at the AP, confirmed iCircular, which is being built in collaboration with Verve Wireless, but declined to elaborate, saying the development process wasn’t far enough along.

The question is whether consumers see circulars as an inherent part of newspapers, enough to peruse them in newspaper apps, or whether they’ll migrate to rapidly proliferating digital coupon services — much like consumers began to turn to Craigslist and other sites for classifieds.

Read more here

An Indian thread maker prepares colored threads for flying kites in Jammu, India. The demand for these threads goes up in August when people in northern India fly kites to celebrate Independence Day on Aug. 15.
Photo by Channi Anand (AP)

A Google spokesman issued the following statement to the Wall Street Journal in regards to the AP’s news articles making a resurrgence (after a month long absense) on Google News:

“We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. The licensing agreement is the subject of ongoing discussion so we won’t be commenting further at this time.”

We enjoyed the distinctive-wording in the statement: “Google properties such as Google News” – just in case you weren’t aware, Mr. (or Miss) Journalist, Google News is owned by (drumroll…) GOOGLE!

This makes the arrangement very interesting, somewhat great (more news to read online is a good thing right?!), and totally meaningless all at the same time, mostly since the AP can be found & consumed all over Yahoo.com, the AP website, probably 1/2 of the blogs on the web, and in printed form in over, what, 3/4 of the newspapers in the United States?

Read some of the latest Google spliced news here and get a glimpse of the future of online newsfeeds as we know it.

The NY Times published a piece today about how more & more newsrooms across the country are lifting their content from “upstarts” who might be less then trust-worthy then (heaven forbid) – the AP and Reuters.
They state: “Publishers and broadcasters have always called on freelance journalists. But a generation ago, if they used material from another organization, it was usually limited to a handful of large, well-known and respected ones like The Associated Press or Reuters. With established newsrooms shrinking, a raft of smaller news outlets have cropped up in the last few years, selling or simply giving news reports to the traditional media — groups like ProPublica, Global Post, Politico and Kaiser Health News.”

In other words, the NY Times can point out other newsroom-cash-for-stories-flaws all they want, as long as they avoid hiring reporters like Jayson Blair in the future…