AP's Speedy 'asap' Service Beaten To Punch
We all had a good chuckle back in October when the AP announced the launch of 'asap,' a new newswire service so youthy and hipness-oriented that it has no need for capitalization in its name. Today, we checked back in and found the asap kids still busily reinventing journalism. For example, via "Assignment: You," You can suggest a story topic, and asap's reporters might cover it! No one had ever thought of that before, except possibly the people over at Assignment Zero, whose volunteer virtual open source newsroom thing David Carr discussed today. But asap's You-journalism is still cooler because it is all multimedia-oriented: "Have an idea that relies on sights and sounds? Be sure to include that; we at asap are pretty handy with still cameras, video cameras and audio recorders." Not as handy as the dude who posts videos of his armpit farting out the headlines on YouTube, probably, but give them time to catch up to You.