Endorsing a new generation of XML-based standards for
exchanging news, the directors of the International Press
Telecommunications Council have approved further development of the
IPTC G2 Family of Standards with a target release date in 2007.
The IPTC G2 Family of Standards will allow news agencies to
smoothly exchange news -- text, photos or other media -- while using
standard XML modules and tools. The result will be lower costs and
shorter development for news agencies and news system vendors who
facing the challenges of presenting the news on the web and personal
electronic devices.
More than 50 delegates from around the world met on 2-6 July 2006
for a regular working session of the IPTC, followed by the formal
annual general meeting. The delegates, who represent most of the
world's major news agencies, news publishers and news system vendors,
form the working core of IPTC's standards development.
Most of the delegates' work in Vienna centered on the IPTC G2
Family of Standards. Formerly loosely known as NewsML 2, the IPTC
G2-standards will include separate wrappers for general news as well
as specialized content such as sports. The wrappers will share
structures and components, such as support for sports and events data,
so that developers can easily recognize the common XML tags and reuse
pieces of software code.
Delegates also established a working group to study possible
expansion of the popular IPTC photo header, used by virtually every
news photographer worldwide. The IPTC header, which is supported by
most popular photo editing software, has been in use for more than 10
years. It was recently updated and released as new "IPTC Core"
standard to support Adobe's XML-based metadata framework, known as
XMP.
In other business, IPTC delegates re-elected Stephane Guerillot of
Agence France-Presse to a second one-year term as chairman of the
board of directors. John Minting of United Press International was
elected to the board, replacing Geoffrey Haynes of The Associated
Press who chose not to stand for re-election.
The next regular meeting of the IPTC will be held in Madrid in
October 2006. The Annual General Meeting for 2007 will be in Tokyo.
The IPTC, based in Windsor, England, is a consortium of the
world's major news agencies, news publishers and news industry
vendors. It develops and maintains technical standards that are used
by virtually every major news organization in the world.
