Today marks an important and exciting milestone at The Associated Press as we seek to deepen our engagement with digital news audiences and diversify our revenue: the relaunch of APNews.com, our consumer-facing website.
A screenshot of the relaunched AP News website. (AP Photo)
The relaunch marks the first significant update to our website in several years and is the result of months of tireless work by teams across every department at AP. The new site – as well as a new app coming this fall – serves as a modern showcase for AP’s global, independent and fact-based journalism, and allows us to experiment with new digital storytelling techniques that also benefit our licensing customers.Indeed, our licensing customers remain the bedrock of AP’s business, and that won’t change. They are already benefiting from the steps we’re taking to create digitally optimized content for APNews – including improved text headlines, faster filing of visuals, and social ready content– and that reciprocity will grow as we create more journalism aimed specifically at digital audiences.Still, as a truly independent news organization, we can only spend what we make. To continue to grow, we need to diversify our revenue sources. Digital advertising, along with e-commerce and our services businesses, is a key part of this. While advertising will never be a dominant revenue stream for the AP like it is for most media companies, it is a crucial growth driver. We are already seeing exciting opportunities in this space, including working directly with brands.Today’s relaunch has been an enormous undertaking by so many people and teams across the AP. We’re grateful to everyone involved in the website relaunch, and look forward to all that’s ahead.Julie, Kristin and Luca
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