IPTC MIRROR SEPTEMBER 2010 Page 1

No 158 / Sept ‘10

Continued, AGM Actions page 2

SUMMARY1 IPTCdelegatesmeetinSanFranciscoforAGM2010;Boarddirectorselected;IPTC-PLUSannouncepanelsforAdobeBridgeCS3,CS4

3 Guestspeakers:AP,Twitter,OpenSAMSN

4 Guestspeakers:ReutersMedia,MainstreamData,APA-IT

5 Guestspeakers:PLUS

6 PeterMüller:formerIPTCchairends30yearsservice

AGM2010delegatesconsiderkeyissues,electdirectors;guestsspotlighttoptrends

IPTC members elected directors for 2010-2011. At left, Vincent Baby (Thomson Reuters, newly elected), Michael Steidl (Managing Director, ex officio), Walter Grolimund (Keystone, re-elected), Stéphane Guérillot (AFP, re-elected), and Helge Viehof, (dpa, re-elected).

IPTCChairmanStéphaneGuérillot—inopeningstatementstoIPTC’s45thAnnualGeneralMeeting,heldinJuneinSanFranciscointheUS—notedthat in spite of global and industrychallenges, IPTC enjoyed a numberof successesduring a year that ad-dressed management and gover-nance issues, as well as standardsdevelopmentwork.

Changes in the British CompaniesAct,whichwent intoeffect inOcto-ber2009,requiredchangesinIPTC’s

ArticlesofAssociation.ThenewAr-ticleswerecreatedandproposedbytheBoardofDirectorsandapprovedbythemembers.Theybecameeffec-tiveinMarch2010.RevisionstotheOperatingProceduresandtheRulesofOrder,alsorequiredbytheCom-paniesActchanges,areunderway.

The4thPhotoMetadataConference,organisedbyIPTC,washeldincon-junctionwithCEPICagain thisyear,with a focuson “UsingMetadata toPowerYourBusiness”.Thefirstpub-

licpresentationofacontrolledvocab-ularyforimagesalsowasmade.

The year also saw implementationoftheIPTCExtensionschemaforphotometadata,andcreation,jointlywiththePLUS Coalition, of the IPTC-PLUSToolkitwhich includesmetadatapan-elsforAdobeBridgeCreativeSuites3and4,andcomprehensiveuserguidesforpanelsinCS3throughCS5.

In addition, IPTCorganised twoop-portunities for members to keepabreastofindustrydevelopments:the“BusinessMeetsTechnologyDay”inParisinMarchandaseriesofstate-of-the-industrypresentationsbynotable

IPTC MIRROR SEPTEMBER 2010 Page 2

AGM Actions, from page 1

Above, a majority of delegates assembled for a farewell dinner honoring IPTC director Peter Müller, SDA/ATS, front row, third from right, who retired after 30 years representing the Swiss news agency for the IPTC. Müller is a past-chairman of IPTC and led the development of IPTC 7901, among other accomplishments. (See more on page 6).

Above, 22 IPTC Voting Member Delegates and 10 Associate Member Delegates convened, in person or by proxy, 28-30 June in San Francisco, California (US) for the IPTC Annual General Meeting 2010. They approved the budget for 2010-2011, and reviewed ongoing projects and initiatives.

guestspeakersattheAGM2010.(Anumberofspeakerpresentationsaresummarisedinthisissue.)

Looking aheadG2-Standardsareenteringtheimple-mentationphase,andpublicrelationsactivitiesneedtoincreaseinordertopromote further adoption. Strength-ened content on the IPTCweb siteand expanded outreach programsalsoareplanned.

Increased activity regarding the Se-manticWebandlinkeddataarepro-jected. Member responses to theseinitiativeshavebeenpositive.

Challenges for IPTCIPTC did well despite the unsettledeconomic challenges that affectedtheindustry.

Attendance at regularly scheduledmeetingsdecreased,reflectingmem-ber budget concerns. IPTCalso ex-periencedariseinbaddebts,andasmalldeclineinmembership.

The IPTCwent throughachange inaccounting currency, to Euros fromBritishPounds,withoutsevereprob-lems;theonlynegative impactonfi-nanceswastheradicaldropininter-est rates,but thisdoesnot relate totheaccountingcurrency.Thebudgetremainednearlyinbalance,anddueswillnotincreasein2011.

Directors electedAnnualelectionsofBoardofDirectorsmemberswerecarriedout.Thesesixdelegateswereformallyapproved:Stéphane Guérillot, Agence•FrancePresse,waselectedasadirectorandtochairtheBoardVincent Baby, ThomsonReuters,•asdirectorWalter Grolimund, Keystone, as•directorTaesungJung,KoreaPressFoun-•dation,asdirectorVincentTripodi,AssociatedPress,•asdirectorHelgeViehof,dpa,asdirector.•

Actions arising from the AGMNewsML1MaintenanceWorking•Party—endtheNewsML1work-ingPartyandestablishaNewsML1WorkingGroup,sincethisstan-dardisnowmaintenance-only.NITFMaintenanceWorkingParty•—completetheworkonincludingforeignXMLnamespaces;createtest documents to try out “G2-isation”feasibilityforNITF;updatetheNITFdocumentation.NewsCodes Working Party –•create and provide a MigrationGuideline of Subject Codes toMediaTopics,ifrequestedbyus-ers; add concept managementdata to the IPTCCV server; ex-tendtheformatsdeliveredbytheIPTCCVserver.Standards Committee – take•steps towards OWL classes ofG2 structures through the Se-manticWebYahoo!Group.PublicRelationsCommittee–add•marketing related content to theIPTCwebsite;implement“@IPTC”asaformalIPTCTwitterfeed;or-ganiseaG2-Standardspresenta-tionattheIfraExpo2010.

IPTCconcluded themeetingby for-mally honoring several representa-tives who no longer serve IPTC orwhowereleavingitimminently:Wal-terBarangerofTheNewYorkTimes;JohnIobstofNAA;TakahiroFujiwaraofEASTCo.,Ltd.;andPeterMullerofSDA/ATS.

IPTC’s AGM 2011 will be held inHamburg,Germany.

IPTC MIRROR SEPTEMBER 2010 Page 3

Todd Martin, Associated Press

Robin Sloan, Twitter

Gunar Penikis, OpenSAMSN

Twitter,iPad,PLUS:speakerpresentationsspotlightrichmediainitiatives

Continued, Speakers page 4

AP registry: a tool to fuel news media profitabilityTodd Martin, vice president and di-rector of Technology for AssociatedPressseestheAPNewsRegistryastoolthatembedsmetadatatocreateaDNAmarkerforeacharticle(and—ultimately—each image), thenusesthosemarkerstotrackthestoriesandtakeasnapshotofwhereeachnewsorganization’sstoriesarebeingused.

Cantheregistryshowwherecontentappears thathasnotbeenpaid for?Yes.Isthattheprimarypurposeoftheregistry?No. The information that isgathered—bycrawlingtheWebandlookingforwherecontentmatches—hasmultipleuses.Allinvolveincreas-ing the profitability of news organi-zations that direct and fund originalnewsgathering.

“By lookingatwhat content is usedand where, news media can iden-tifyotherstoriesthatusagepointstoasbeingof interest, so theycanbemonetisedfurther”,Martinsaid.Rightnow,thenewsregistryistextfocused—“it’severywhere,it’sfree-form,andit’s unregulated”, said Martin. Laterphases will focus on images, thenvideo.

While theAPNewsRegistry,whichlaunched in mid-July after a year ofbeta testing, may be used to trackcontent used without permission,thatisnotthecurrentfocus.“Permis-sions”willbeaddressedinPhase2.APwillbeworkingwithACAPonthatphase.

The world’s news: tweetedAsasocialphenomenon,Twitterisaniconicexampleoftechnologyenablinginteractions between people. Morethan that, it isanewsdissemination

channel that makes news personaland immediate in a way little elsecan.RobinSloan,whomanagestheTwitterNewsHub, illustrated thisbydescribing Twitter activity about theWorld Cup playoffs that were thenunderwayinSouthAfrica.

“Globally,30percentofallTwitteractivity is on mobile units. Therearesome65milliontweetsaday,or70persecond.TheWorldCupis pushing that to the limit rightnow”,hesaid.

“Twitter isamassivelysharedexpe-rience”. “It’s newmedia that’s real-time,interactiveandpersonal.”Twit-terusagehas implications fornewsmedia.TheWorldCup isacase inpoint:whilecomplexagreementsandcontractsgovernwhichnewsmediacan report on which events, Twit-ter can undermine their relevance.How can any news organization—or sports federation or franchise—maintainexclusivity,when tweetsabout plays and points are beingbroadcast around theworld, in realtimeandcompletelyungoverned,byfansinthestadium?

Onthetechnicalside,SloannotedthatgatheringtweetsonatopicorsetsofkeywordsusingstreamingAPIisnotdone by Twitter. “Gathering tweetsandthenputtingtheminuser-labeled‘buckets’isdoneatCNNorCrimsonHexagon or whatever”, he said. “It’snotautomated;it’sdonebyhumans.”

OpenSAMSN: bar-coding the news.“Metadataislikeabar-codeonprod-ucts”, said Gunar Penekis, chair-manofOpenSAMSNandan indus-

IPTC MIRROR SEPTEMBER 2010 Page 4

Evan Maloney, then with Thomson Reuters

Gerald Klima, APA-IT

Scott Calder, Mainstream Data

Continued, Speakers page 5

Speakers, from page 3

try expert in metadata technologiesanddigital supplychainoptimizationstrategies “It’sastandardisedsetofinformationthatcanhelpmakedigitalassets more accessible and enablethemtobetrackedandmanaged,justasbarcodesgaverisetoretailinven-torymanagementsystemsthatrevo-lutionisedtheretailproductindustry.”

SAMSN—StronglyAttachedMeta-data with Semantic Namespaces— seeks greater industry interoper-ability using Semantic Namespacesto link authoritative data together.Namespaces play a similar role totelephoneareacodes.Metadatareg-istries are growing and provide ex-pandingopportunitiestoconnect.

Reuters’ News Pro streams news to iPads, iPhonesTo Evan Maloney, a software engi-neerand,atthattime,adrivingforcebehindThomsonReuters’iPhoneandiPadNewsProapplication,successliesin a sleight of hand, butwithout anymagic. “The ideal is toprovideuserswith the illusion that your service of-fersthespeedandimmediacyofhighspeedInternetdelivery”,hesaid,“eventhoughthatistechnicallyimpossible.”

NewsPro’s goals,Maloney said, areto present the most timely contentpossible, regardless of network con-ditions,torespondimmediatelytotheuser’sdesire toviewcontentand,asmuchaspossible,makeusers forgetthatmobile networks are slower andless reliable than the desktop world,thatnetworkconditionscanvaryevenwithina smallgeographicarea (“badconnections are the rule, not the ex-ception”), downloading takes longeritembyitem,andbandwidthisaseri-ouslylimitingfactor.One measure of the mobile apps’success is whether a user commut-ing on the subway inNewYork can“pre-fetch”sufficientcontenttolastfora 30-minute commute undergroundwherethereisnoconnectivity.

“Weareabletogetprettyclosewhenit’sjustnewsandphotos”,saidMalo-

ney.“Metadataisthegluethatallowsus todeliveruser-requestedcontent.ThomsonReuters’marketdatahelpsusknowwhatcontentislikelytobere-quested,sowecanpre-loadacontentcatalog that the user seeswhen theapplicationisactivated.”Anumberofothertechniquesworktogethertogivethatsubwayriderhisorher30minutesofride-timecontent”,hesaid.

Market for mobile applications is the industry’s futureAspresidentandCEOofMainstreamData,providerofmultimedia informa-tiondeliverysystems,andofNewscomCelebrity, a subsidiary, Scott Calder,hasseen the future,and it ismobile.“Content companies that do not re-acttotheexplosivemobileinformationmarketplacedosoattheirownperil”.

The mobile phenomenon is here tostay, globally.Appleowesmore than90percentofitsrevenuetoproductsthatoperatewithoutapowercord,andanestimated38percentofiPadsalesaremadeoutside theUS.Experts ex-pectthisfigurewillreach43percentbyyear-end.USsalesarestrong.

Mainstream entered the still-evolvingmarketplacewiththefirstentertainmentnews app for iPads at Apple Store:Newscom Celebrity. Mainstream’sexperience illustrates the challenges.When the initial purchase price was2.99USD,saleswerelight.Inthefirstninehoursaftertheappwasprovidedfree,thousandsweredownloaded.

“Thereisnotyetaclearbusinessmodel...butthechangetowardsunpluggedcomputingisirreversible”,Caldersaid.“Providersmustadapt...addressingthemarketplacewiththeirownappsorbypartnering.”

IPTC standards: the long road to business valueWhat leads a news media companyto implement IPTC standards?Whatprevents them fromdoingso?Basedonhisownexperiences,GeraldKlima,CEOofAPA-ITInformationsTechnolo-gieGmbH,asubsidiaryofAustriaPressAgency,cananswerbothquestions.

IPTC MIRROR SEPTEMBER 2010 Page 5

Publisher’s Statement

TheIPTC MirrorispublishedfivetimesperyearbytheInternationalPressTelecommunicationsCouncil(IPTC).TheIPTC,basedinLondon,U.K.,isaconsortiumoftheworld‘smajornewsagencies,newspublishersandnewsindustryvendors.Foundedin1965,theIPTCdevelopsandmaintainsthetechnicalstandardsfor improvednewsexchangethatareusedbyvirtuallyeverymajornewsorganization in theworld.Membership isopentoorganisationsandcompaniesconcernedwithnewscollection,distributionandpublishing,aswellastosystemvendorssupportingthenewsindustry.TheIPTCkeepstheindustryapprisedofissuesanddevelopmentsthroughtheIPTCMirror,theIPTCWebsite,andTwitter@IPTC.

IPTC Managing Director: Michael W. Steidl (mdirector@iptc.org) • Editor: Sue Sherrard Fine (editor@iptc.org) • 20 Garrick Street, London WC2E 9BT, United Kingdom • Tel: +44 (20) 3178 4922 • Fax: +44 (20) 7664 7878.

The IPTC is registered in England as “Comité International des Télécommunications de Presse” at 10 Portland Business Centre, Datchet, Slough, Berks, SL3 9EG, Registration No. 1010968.

*PhotographsinIPTCMirrorwithoutacreditlineweretakenbySueFine,IPTCEditor.

Jeff Sedlik, PLUS

Speakers, from page 4

APA-ITimplementedandusesanum-ber of IPTC standards: IPTC 7901,NITF, NewsML 1, IIM, and most re-cently, SportsML-G2. The companyalso uses Subject NewsCodes andIPTCCoreandExtensionSchemaforXMP.With thesestandardsas tools,APA processes 50,000 incomingmedia items per day in 77 differentformats from447dataprovidersandoutputs215,000mediaiteminstanc-esin132differentformatsfor12,700customers.

“Asacompany,wearemorecustomerfocusedthanstandardsfocused,”Kli-masaid.“Wewillcustomisestandardswhen a special solution is needed.IPTCstandardsareimplementedwhenthereisasignificantbusinessvalue”.

AccordingtoKlima,thereareprosandcons—“promotors andinhibitors” —that affect decisions to adopt IPTCstandards,andthesefactorsneedtobeconsidered.

For Klima, themarket pressures thatargue for adoption (promotors) in-clude:

online business compared to print •is more and more significantfor events, standards simplify ac-•cess to related text and multime-dia contentthe market for standard IT solutions •for news agencies is growing.

Klima’slistoffactorsthatareobstaclestoadoption(inhibitors)islonger.Inad-ditiontoassessingbusinessvaluesand

customising standards to meet cus-tomerneeds,thesefactorscomplicateadoption:

standards are too complex for •customers with minimum IT staff and simple requirementsthe investment cycle for devel-•oping editorial systems at news agencies and media companies is longNews agencies are providing •end-to-end solutions instead of standardised feeds.

Ultimately, more andmore agencieswill adopt the G2-Standards in thefaceofincreasingpressurestostan-

dardiseITsolutions,Klimasaid.Image rights metadata are“mission critical”The PLUS (Picture Licensing Uni-versalSystem)CoalitionislaunchingthePLUSRegistrythisyear,auniquemeans of protecting photographicimageintellectualpropertyrightsany-

whereintheworld.Industrystakeholders inmorethan30countries collaborated to create thePLUSsystemofstandards.Theobjec-tivewas—andis—tomakeiteasierto communicate, understand,manageandprotectimagerightsinallcountries.No standard until now supported theindustry’sactuallicensingpractices.

IPTC worked with PLUS to securethe rights metadata standards. ThestandardsincorporateIPTCmetadatatodescribecontent.

TheRegistryconsistsof threemod-ules—RightsHolders,Images(rightsholder names, contact information),andLicenseInformation.

Using the Registry, image metadatacan be stored outside the image file,connecting that information continu-ouslythroughoutthelifeoftheimage.Thisresolvesakeyissueinimagerightsprotection.

In addition, using special software,the Registry “fingerprints” the pixelsineachimage,sothatphotoscanbeidentifiedbycontent.The“fingerprint”isstoredwithintheregistry.

Guidelinesestablishedbystakehold-ersfordevelopingtheuniversalstan-dards for expressing image rightsmandatethattheybehumanreadable,machine interpretable, and multilin-gual.Theyalsomustuniquelyidentifyevery image,every rightsholderandthelicenseinformationofeachregis-teredimage.

The Registry begins registering im-agesthisyear.

IPTC MIRROR SEPTEMBER 2010 Page 6

PeterMüllercaps30years

withIPTCatAGM2010PeterMüller—whofor30yearsservedasanIPTCmemberrepresentativeofSDA/ATS,theSwissnewsagency—retiredrecently,endinghisIPTCterminJuneattheAGM2010inSanFran-cisco,California,US.

Duringhisremarkablylongtenure,hesawIPTCtransitionfromitsinitialmis-sionofloweringinternationaltelecom-munications tariffs fornewsagenciesandnewspapers,totheemphasisto-dayondevelopingspecificationsthatspeedthedigitalflowofnewsacrossall media. Müller contributed to bothobjectives. He led the developmentand launch of IPTC7901,which re-mains the world’s most widely usedIPTC standard. He also successfullyargued for the present membershipstructure,which secured IPTC finan-cially.

In San Francisco, Müller spoke tothe IPTC Mirror about his early dayswithIPTC,thechangeshe’sseenandwhereheenvisionstheindustrygoingnext.

The way it wasWhenPeterMüllerwalkedintohisfirstIPTCmeeting inMunich,Germany in1980,telexwasstateofthearttrans-mission technology for the industry,commercialsatelliteswereonlybegin-ningtoshowpotential,andthedesk-top computer revolution was morethanadecadeinthefuture.

“Themain issuewhen I first becamean IPTCmember representative wasthe fight against monopolistic phonecompanies in different countries andtheveryhighprices theycharged forusing the telephone lines”, saidMül-ler.

Tariffswerenot theonlyproblem. “InEurope, the Post Office, which gov-ernedsuchthings,requiredbusiness-

estousetelexmachinesobtainedfromthePostOffice.Thechargeswerehighandthemachineswereverynoisy,soitwasdifficulttoworknearthem.WeworkedaroundthisbyputtingthePostOffice’s telex machines in the cellarand connected them to new, quieteronesthatwepurchasedfortheroomwhereweworked.At great expense,ofcourse.”

IPTCwasformed,in1965,todosome-thingaboutthesehigh-costconditions,hesaid.“IPTCledthefightagainstthetelephonecompanymonopoliesinthedifferentcountries”. In themid-to-late1980s,countrybycountry,lowertariffscappedthe20-yeareffortandusheredinanewphase for IPTC:developingstandards for transmittingwords andpictureswithspeedandaccuracy.

In 1992, Müller was elected to theManagementCommittee (now calledtheBoardofDirectors).HewasIPTCChairman from AGM 1999 to AGM2002.

Lookaheadto2010:IPTCistherec-ognised standards developer for thenewindustry,newsagenciesarecom-mitted to implementing the recentlypublishedG2-Standards,acontrolledvocabulary for photos and videos isin development and the industry isstudying the value of participation inLinkedDatainitiativesandtheSeman-ticWeb.

What is next for the industry?“IthinksocialmediaandtheSemanticWebareimportant”,saidMüller.“Wealsoneedmembersfromcountries inSouthAmericaandAfrica tocontrib-utetheirperspectives.”

Summarizing his IPTC service, Müllersaid,“IlearnedmorethanIgave.Imademanyfriendsamongmycolleagues.AndIwishtheindustryabrightfuture.”

Peter Müller served at IPTC from 1980 to 2010. He was made an honorary member on retiring.