By: Staff Reports Industry Standard Proposed by IPTC
Online news has moved one step closer to adopting an industry-wide
format for content delivery to multiple devices such as desktop
computers and mobile phones.
At its annual meeting in Geneva, the International Press
Telecommunications Council (IPTC) recently released the first
version of NewsML, an eXtensible Markup Language-based standard
for multimedia news management.
NewsML is the result of an IPTC initiative to develop an XML-based
standard for all aspects of multimedia news creation, storage, and
delivery. Daniel Rivers-Moore, an XML consultant at RivCom, worked
closely with IPTC members to develop the first version of NewsML,
which continues to be a work in progress.
'It marks a major breakthrough in the area of standards for news
management and interchange, and reflects the collaborative efforts
of a large number of individuals from our membership,' said Peter
Mueller, director of the Swiss News Agency and chairman of the IPTC.
NewsML allows editors to offer text in different national languages
or photographs, graphics, and video clips in alternative formats,
allowing end-users to see the version they need. XML, the foundation
for NewsML, differs from HyperText Markup Language (HTML) in that
XML allows tags to be defined by the developer of the page, thus
allowing multiple vocabularies to be used in news items.
The IPTC plans to ratify the NewsML standard at its October meeting
in Amsterdam, but encourages news organizations to attempt
implementing it beforehand.
Members of IPTC include Agence France-Press, The Associated Press,
Dow Jones & Co. Inc., the Newspaper Association of America, Reuters
Ltd., Screaming Media, and the World Association of Newspapers. The
New York Times Co. is an associate member.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Staff Reports
For more on NewsML, visit these sites (not affiliated with E&P Online):
IPTC's NewsML Introduction
Screaming Media's Alan Karben Deciphers NewsML
(c) Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here