What’s the biggest threat to a centralized organization? Decentralization, of course. Like antimatter to the AP’s matter, the populous Web built a new publishing reality Old Media would rather not face: they’ve lost control of the news.

Yes, the AP (Associated Press) is desperate. Yes, the AP has lost control of the news. And yes, bloggers are more and more going local with their focus. That leads to an obvious question, will bloggers eventually replace the AP and other news organizations?

The Associated Press is both angering the web and making it laugh this week. By now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the AP’s announced plans to "protect" it’s content from "misappropriation." If not, WebProNews Publisher Rich Ord has a good piece on that here.

The Associated Press (AP) announced this week that it’s working on a system  to "protect" its content from being "misappropriated" online. WebProNews CEO Rich Ord posted a thought-provoking piece on the subject giving some background into the situation.

The Associated Press has announced its plan to launch an initiative to protect news content from "misappropriation" online.

"We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories," says AP Chairman Dean Singleton.

The AP has shown that it can, at least to some degree, keep up with the times.  Moreover, it can pick appropriate names.  The AP Member Marketplace has, you see, managed to attract over 500 newspapers.

The Associated Press has introduced a new local video feature for affiliate news sites to upload locally produced video and monetize the content through local online advertising.

The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, the Press Association, and the Canadian Press are expanding upon earlier deals with Google News, and as part of the latest arrangement, Google News will now host some of their stories on its own site.

The Associated Press has tapped the Attributor Corporation to monitor and track their online content.

The explosion of online video has had a significant impact upon the social networking industry, but the influence of the platform is beginning to bleed over into traditional information mediums as well.

Gary Price reports that the Associated Press has launched a video network, the shockingly named “AP Online Video Network”.