Associated Press and Convera strike strategic agreement

The Associated Press and Convera Corporation have announced a strategic agreement whereby Convera’s RetrievalWare will be used for categorising, searching and distributing multimedia content within the AP’s ‘electronic AP’ (eAP) initiative. Under the agreement, AP and Convera will also work together to tailor RetrievalWare to address broader application requirements of the news industry.
AP’s eAP initiative, a new generation of content management and distribution systems for newspaper publishers and other AP subscribers, is expected to significantly enhance the way the AP provides multimedia content in an interactive, easy-to-use form to its base of thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television and online customers.
Using Convera’s RetrievalWare, AP subscribers will be able to more easily specify the personalised news products they want to receive, access a web-based delivery network, and receive more robust value-added content that is relevant to customers’ interests.
Convera is supplying the AP with its RetrievalWare 8 search and categorization platform, a range of taxonomies, personalisation capabilities and its Taxonomy Workbench for the purpose of building and deploying a complete suite of taxonomy assets to support the eAP initiative and the news industry. The AP and Convera will also cooperate on marketing and distribution of the resultant solution within the news industry.
“We’re excited to be working closely with Convera to realize our vision of eAP as we continue to make the AP the essential global news company,” said John Reid, Senior Vice President, The Associated Press. “We believe RetrievalWare’s strengths in categorisation, classification, personalisation and taxonomy development will help us more quickly and precisely deliver relevant multimedia content as part of our news services. With thousands of members and subscribers in 121 countries, and the need to operate on a 24x7 basis, the scalability and robust enterprise architecture of RetrievalWare also provide great advantages for us.”
(GB)