Newly born news distribution platform, News Exchange, made its debut on Monday and has been making waves since. The company behind News Exchange, Publish2 is hoping to challenge Associated Press (AP) with their new platform. Even though AP is a not-for-profit organisation, it is reported to generate revenue of almost $700m, and News Exchange wants a slice of the cake by making an “…AP for the 21st Century…”
Publish2 has engineered a collaborative journalism network where free and paid-for content is distributed to subscribers who can publish free or purchased content via their respective media channels, be it print or online. Squarely aimed at news providers and publishers, Publish2 has signed several new media publishers including Mashable, engadget and TechCrunch to feed the co-operative. This should enable content normally limited to an online audience to be distributed via other more traditional media.
Currently in beta, News Exchange has a limited feature set but Publish2 is using the $2.75 million dollars it raised during it’s initial funding round to implement additional features. Upcoming features include analytics which would allow publishers to quantify views and other important metrics as well as a fully featured tagging system.
A particularly interesting feature is the News Exchange marketplace. Providers could set their own prices and business models for news buyers allowing pay-as-you-go or unlimited access fees.
There’s a big hill to climb in terms of recruiting enough content providers to attain some momentum but as a finalist in TechCrunch’s Disrupt competition, News Exchange looks set to give AP a run for its money.
