No, I don't mean the RSS/Atom/etc. syndication of XML content, e.g. blogs. No, I mean news syndication. Reuters. AP. The way one reporter can instantaneously post a story to more than one news publications at once. Actually, a lot of them. Dozens. Hundreds.
Take this guy, Jeremy Pugmire. He's a staff AP sports writer. Which in itself sounds mind-numbingly boring. Images of pig-like NFL announcers, shouting something about men in tights piling on top of each others, flash by. But no. Jeremy is writing about something else. Cycling. We like Jeremy. He gives us news about how the 'old man' is doing. Which is the first thing I checked after finishing my 20 mile sprint this morning.
Jeremy's writings, as a virtue of his AP status, get syndicated. A lot. Fifty minutes ago, a piece of his on the Tour's last time trial this year, which is going on right now, got published. So I cobbled together some code and did a little rummaging online, using only the .com TLD. Within the first hour, how many do you think had picked up and published Jeremy's piece? Not just one paper. Or two. But seventy-one!
No, I am not kidding. Take a look:
- Bonner County Daily Bee, ID
- Carthage Press, MO
- In-Forum (subscription), ND
- Carlisle Sentinel, PA
- KFSN, CA
- Mt. Carmel Daily Republican Register, IL
- Daily Independent, CA
- Skagit Valley Herald, WA
- Santa Maria Times, CA
- Penn Live, PA
- McCurtain Daily Gazette, OK
- Lodi News-Sentinel, CA
- North County Times, CA
- Petoskey News-Review, MI
- Daily Inter Lake, MT
- Princeton Times, WV
- Bismarck Tribune, USA
- Corvallis Gazette Times, OR
- Ceres Courier, CA
- Suffolk News-Herald, VA
- The Porterville Recorder, CA
- Kansas City Kansan, KS
- Jefferson City News Tribune, MO
- Tahlequah Daily Press, OK
- MLive.com, MI
- Times Picayune, LA
- In-Forum (subscription), ND
- Carthage Press, MO
- Bonner County Daily Bee, ID
- Gadsden Times (subscription), AL
- Record-Journal, CT
- Rapid City Journal, SD
- Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, IA
- In-Forum (subscription), ND
- Canton Daily Ledger, IL
- Daily Press, VA
- Orlando Sentinel, FL
- Greenwich Time, CT
- Carlisle Sentinel, PA
- Allentown Morning Call, PA
- Wyoming News, WY
- Santa Maria Times, CA
- Skagit Valley Herald, WA
- Los Angeles Times, CA
- Mt. Carmel Daily Republican Register, IL
- Daily Independent, CA
- Stamford Advocate, CT
- Sun-Sentinel.com, FL
- Lodi News-Sentinel, CA
- Petoskey News-Review, MI
- Daily Inter Lake, MT
- McCurtain Daily Gazette, OK
- Tahlequah Daily Press, OK
- North County Times, CA
- San Marcos Daily Record, TX
- Corvallis Gazette Times, OR
- Brenham Banner Press, United States
- Suffolk News-Herald, VA
- Albany Times Union, NY
- Jefferson City News Tribune, MO
- Kansas City Kansan, KS
- Bismarck Tribune, USA
- The Porterville Recorder, CA
- Sarasota Herald-Tribune, FL
- Dateline Alabama, AL
- San Marcos Daily Record, TX
- Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, IA
- Rapid City Journal, SD
- New Albany Tribune, IN
- The Missoulian, MT
- Gainesville Sun, FL
Seventy-one.
The affluent part of mankind really is constantly moving closer and closer together. The global village? Forget that. Try the global appartment building. With all the late-night practicing on the trombone, the headache of agreeing on what color to paint the staircase, plus the obnoxious fumes from across the hall, where some idiot is eating fermented shark.
