Publish2 wants to take content distribution away from the AP

Publish2, a content distribution service for print and web publishing, announced today the launch of the Publish2 News Exchange, a proposed replacement for mega content distributor the Associated Press.

The company claims that its new product, which launched today at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference, will help publishers avoid the high costs associated with the AP for equally high-quality and free content from around the web. Rather than purchasing content from the AP, the Publish2 News Exchange connects web publishers with print publishers to distribute content to anyone at anytime. The web publishers benefit by having their brand syndicated in print.

Publish2 is a sort of news aggregator for online journalists, including bloggers, which add links from news stories they find from around the web. The links are combined and shared for distribution through different channels.

Several online news publishers created newswires for the company’s new product launch, including AOL Small Business, DailyFinance.com and TechCrunch.

The company, first started in 2007, previously secured about the $2.75 million from Velocity Interactive Group, a digital media-focused venture firm.