The Associated Press has quietly added RSS feeds to their corporate site. This is the first time AP stories are available directly on the web in RSS (as opposed to running through Yahoo News.) The seventeen feeds include Top News, US, World, Business, Sports, and Technology--and are headlines/digest feeds available for non-commercial use. Right now the feeds go to generic AP story pages. According to VP/Director of Strategic Planning J im Kennedy, in time they plan to implement geotargeting to direct clickthrus to local/regional members who use the Custom News service.

Some terms worth noting in the language of the redistribution rights:

• You agree to provide proper attribution to The Associated Press in reasonable proximity to your use of the RSS feed(s), and you agree that you will not modify the format or branding of the headlines, digests and other information provided in the RSS feeds.
• The RSS feeds may not be spliced into or otherwise redistributed by third-party RSS providers.
• No content, including any advertisements or other promotional content, shall be added to the RSS feeds.

AP has been hard at work studying the next generation of digital and social media--this is the first tangible product of those efforts.

(Disclosure: I have consulted for the AP.)

Update: Some folks are wondering, l ike Jeff, if AP is planning to link their stories through news partners--the answer is yes.