AP Modeling Wikipedia

The Associated Press noted in a memo that it competes with Wikipedia for news. Given Wikipedia's immense popularity, the AP is now modeling its digital strategy after Wikipedia to gain site traffic.

The idea is to create pages that appear high in search results and people will elect to choose the AP over Wikipedia as "a focal point for discovery of authoritative sources of news."

I find it interesting that a well-respected source such as the AP is now trying to learn from a novel, yet not always accurate, online encyclopedia. The AP is trying to employ ideas such as stickiness and the long tail in its digital strategy to mirror the success of Wikipedia. It is great to see an established news service such as the AP catch on (even if it is a little late) to how the Internet works. I feel it gives classic journalism some hope in a time when papers are shutting down left and right.