AP Exchange Community Blog

AP's Special Parent Content Now Available

Type SPE into AP Exchange and you'll see the latest series of Special Edition features. This batch focuses on Parenting. There are stories dealing with everything from tantrums to playgroups to others, inlcuding my favorite, how to effectively deal with someone else's misbehaving kids. There's even dieting content. Great for a print or online section. Again, to access this special content, type SPE into AP Exchange.

Getting Your AP News in IE7

We've been messing around with IE7 for a while now. Formally, our QA team is ensuring everything works well in this new browser. While they do that we've been taking the new browser for a test drive. In particular, we're focused on the Feed Reader in IE 7 and how it works with AP Exchange. Bottom line is it works real well. This means, you can set up saved searches and get the stories sent right to your IE browser. Of course, we'd love you to log into AP Exchange, but this means you don't have to, at least to keep track of your saved searches. Here's the scoop:

First, download IE7. Then set up a saved search in AP Exchange. Then click on the Saved Search management button in the top right of the homepage . Then click the orange RSS icon. The RSS feed of that Saved Search will automatically appear in your new IE 7 window. On that page, look for the "View feed properties" link on the right side of the page. Click it and tell IE how frequently to check for new stories. The saved search will then appear in IE 7's Favorites Center.

Local News Awaits in Exchange

AP's Texas Bureau Chief Dale Leach has an effective technique to demonstrate the ability of AP Exchange to help find unique, local content. When Leach visits a newsroom, he'll fire up Exchange and immediately create a search for the name of a local community. It's a bit of a wildcard that comes up, but the results often provide terrific ideas for local features. "Often the name of a local, amateur athelete will pop up in a sports agate file," says Leach. "And in many of those cases, the editor I'm talking to hasn't heard of this kid. But there's a great local story to be written. The kid's mom will be thrilled and the neighbours and family will all buy copies."

In addition to stories about local athletes, town names crop up in a wide range of other AP articles.  Frequently, because the name of the town is not in the slug or lead, these mentions go unseen by the newsroom not using AP Exchange. Give it a shot. See what comes up.

Setting up RSS feeds from AP Exchange

You may not know this, but you can create an RSS feed for any Saved Search you create in AP Exchange. This means you can have the stories/photos from each search sent to your desktop or phone or RSS reader or your web browser where the results will co-mingle with other news RSS feeds you have created. It's like having all the news that matters to you one one site. Here's a terrific article from Poynter's Larry Larson on how to work with RSS feeds to make your job of newsgathering easier. http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=62&aid=101348