Standard-Setting
Publishers defend classified ads with diverse Internet offerings, yet that diversity hampers their competitive position, making it difficult to aggregate national databases. In response, NAA's Classified Advertising Standards Task Force, chaired by Jack Stanley, vice president of operations at the Houston Chronicle, aims to bring order to elements (see Presstime, July/Aug. 1998, p. 57). By year end, its goal is a database-friendly file format that marks individual data items, creates a hierarchical structure, has support from commercially available software tools, and adapts well to multiple media.