AP ending "asap"

[deskslave]

NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press is closing down a 2-year-old premium multimedia service that emphasized nontraditional methods of storytelling, saying that it had failed to gain enough traction with newspaper clients.
The service, called "asap," will be discontinued as a standalone service on Oct. 31, Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the news cooperative, told AP staff in an internal memo Friday.

Neither of the papers I was at during that time span subscribed; the stories looked interesting, but they were also rather feature-y, and I'm not sure there was ever much space for them in most papers.

 

[WazzuGrad00]

Maybe now they'll focus on making their core product better.

 

[micropolitan guy]

They sucked.

Invest on getting copy/agate out of LA and the Bay Area faster instead. No reason to wait for 30 minutes after a game as often happens, especialy since it's often the last thing anyone is waiting for.

 

[times38]

Some were fun to read on down time, but I never used a single one in the paper.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

NOW THE YOUNG READER IS LOST FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

I'm sure they'll come up with something even lamer to replace it.

 

[Claws for Concern]

Maybe they'll devote more time to answer the requests of those who post on SportsJournalists.com that they haven't received their agate box from (fill in the event).

 

[KJIM]

Have thought of this AP service recently when I look down lists of clickbait headlines and felt like asap was simply ahead of its time. Slideshows, especially, seem like something that asap embraced.

Anyone else remember asap? I was at AP during its time so I remember the fanfare and what it intended to do. It seems to me that what I see now on, say, cnn.com, is pretty much was asap was shooting for.