AP Exchange Community Blog

AP Exchange Clears 16,000 Users

We're very pleased with the response to AP Exchange. We are happy to report that in October, we surpassed 16,000 users. This means over 16,000 editors and reporters in the US are using AP Exchange to work with the AP wire. Thank you for this support!

Join the AP Exchange Community Network

Since AP Exchange is still very much a work in progress and dependent upon feedback from editors and reporters, we've set up a social network to allow users to talk about the system, about web delivery of news, to share ideas around searches and to offer us feedback. We invite you to join this community and get involved with the development of Exchange. There are forums awaiting your input! It's easy to join, just go to apexchange.ning.com to sign-up. Hope to see you in the network.

SIte Admin Training Today

It's Monday and that means our weekly Site Admin training session. The 60min session begins at 2pm ET. RSVP to talkback@ap.org. This session is designed to offer Site Admins all the background they need to get staff in their newsrooms up and running with AP Exchange. We cover all the background, account set-up, training and also a guided tour of AP Exchange. Site Admins are very important to the launch of AP Exchange and we use these Monday sessions to ensure Site Admins are well informed about the service. Hope you can make it!

Training This Week

Site Admin training for AP Exchange runs Monday at 2pm ET. In this 60 min session, we cover the basics about AP Exchange...the background, purpose and goals. Account set-up and training.

On Thursday  at 11 and 4:30 ET, we have School of Search training to help users master searching in AP Exchange. This is a 30min session. Everyone is welcome!

To sign up, RSVP to talkback@ap.org

Next Launch December 11

While testing AP Exchange last week, we discovered a slight change we could make that should yield a 20% improvement in the speed of searches. That's a high number. So, we've delayed our Dec 4 launch until next Monday, Dec 11. This will give us time to make the change and test it appropriately  this week.

As well, we're going to host a couple conference calls for Site Admins to show off the new Watchlist feature of AP Exchange. These sessions will be held on Thurs, Dec 7 at 2pm ET and Friday, December 8 at 11am ET. For either session, please RSVP to talkback@ap.org. 

2700 Accounts and Climbing!

We're thrilled with the pace at which editors and reporters are setting up accounts in AP Exchange. The service has been live for about 3 weeks now and in that period, we've seen 2700 accounts set up. We're very happy with this. We know how hectic life is in a newsroom and we're very happy editors and reporters have taken time in the midst of busy shifts to check out Exchange.

Thank you!

Site Admin Training Mon 2pm ET

Every Monday @ 2pm ET we offer training to Site Admins. If you'd like to attend, simply RSVP to talkback@ap.org. The session runs an hour and is in 2 parts - Site Admin training followed by a tour of AP Exchange. We cover setting up accounts, training, integration and anything else on your mind. Hope you can make it! Send us a note: talkback@ap.org and we'll follow up with the details.

The Future of YourAp.org

A number of editors have asked whether the tried and trusted http://YourAP.org will be replaced with AP Exchange. The answer is yes. However, nothing will change before next spring.

Here's the plan. This month, we're going to ask about a dozen Yourap users to perform their YourAP tasks in Exchange. While we believe Exchange is a better service, we want to ensure users agree. Once we get the green light from this user group, we'll pick a date for the phase-out. At this point, I would expect to do this in April.

If you have any thoughts or concerns about this transition, let us know. What do you really like about YourAP?  Click Comments below to respond.

AP Exchange has launched

AP's new AP Exchange service is now live. We've enabled approximately 160 newspapers, which means they are entitled to use the service. We hope to be above 200 papers by the end of October. The roll-out will continue well into January.

If you are a site admin, please be sure to sign up for our regular Site Admin training sessions. Every monday at 2pm ET. RSVP to talkback@ap.org.

We'll use this blog to keep you posted on the status of the roll-out, to share user ideas and tips with you, to keep you informed about our work with production system vendors and to have another pipeline for your ideas and comments about AP Exchange.

My name is Dwayne Desaulniers. I'm with AP and serve as product manager for Exchange. I work with a talented team of techies and editorial folks and we're responsible for the service. Your comments, ideas and opinions mean alot, so we hope you can take advantage of this blog and help us improve the service. We're looking forward to hearing back from you.