Newspapers’ ‘frenemy’ Google, the debate continues

Posted by Martin Stabe on 10 April 2007 at 14:31
Tags: Agence France Presse, Chicago Tribune, Google, Google News, Los Angeles Times, Tribune Company

Google maybe making peace with the wires, but America’s latest newspaper mogul is not a fan. The new owner of Tribune newspapers, Chicago property magnate Sam Zell, reignited the old Google-as-kleptomaniac topos when he told students at Stanford University:

“We have a situation today where effectively the content is being paid for by the newspapers and stolen by Google, etcetera.”

He later added: “If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?” Not very.”

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Google makes nice with the wires

Posted by Martin Stabe on 10 April 2007 at 14:26
Tags: Agence France Presse, Associated Press, Google, Google News

AFP and Google last week settled their long-running copyright squabble on Friday when they signed a licensing agreement that will allow the French news agency’s material to appear on Google News.

AFP dropped its 2005 US lawsuit over Google’s unauthorised use of its content as part of the deal that a Google spokesman said will “dramatically improve the way users experience newswire content on the Internet” and will “ help highlight original journalism, giving credit to the newswire journalists who worked hard to break the news.”

The AFP deal is the latest hint that Google is adopting a different approach to the newswires than it is with “retail” news publishers.

Last summer, Google also signed another licensing agreement with the Associated Press. No further details of that deal were released, although that deal was said at the time to be a for a yet-unreleased new service from Google, rather than for Google News.

Google clearly understands that the major news agencies have carved out a uniquely important role online. Thanks to their prominent place on the web portals, the wire services are cementing their hold on online news, particular international news. Despite the multitude of “retail” news sites online, they rely on just two “wholesalers” — AP and Reuters — for most of their content, a study published last year by Chris Paterson of Leeds University illustrated (PDF).

This seems to make sense in many ways. One of the great weaknesses of Google News has been that many copies of agency reports often appear in its searches because dozens of newspapers have whisked copy straight from the wire to their web sites. Why should a reader have to trawl through dozens of copies of the same story? And why should one local paper get all the traffic from a report filed by an AP or AFP correspondent?

Everyone, it seems, can be happy. The wires, the users, the aggregators.

Well, almost everyone. Notice anyone missing from this party?

Google News is like a newstand

Posted by Martin Stabe on 28 April 2006 at 10:55
Tags: Agence France Presse, Google, Journalism, Newspapers, Yahoo

Ryan Blethen, a columnist with the Seattle Times, repeats a charge against the big search engines that is surprisingly common among newspaper people:

Essentially, Google News is hijacking news with no compensation to newspapers. The search engines then get credit for the entire news-gathering and presentation process. A lot of online news reader say they get their news from Google or Yahoo! — even though all those sites do is use a program that grabs the news off newspaper Web sites.

This is also the view of the World Association of Newspapers, and several major news organisations. It was a position repeated by WAN MD Ali Rahnema the Online Publishers’ Association confab in London last month. Some have gone even further: A year ago, Agence France Presse even sued Google over copyright violations, which has lead to the removal of copy from the search engine’s results.

The mistake these publishers are making is to think that Google News is behaving like a competing newspaper that is lifting their content. Google is not entirely blameless for this misperception: The developer of Google News, Krishna Bharat, has used this analogy himself, describing his creation as “a computer-generated newspaper that unifies news from online newspapers worldwide with an emphasis on diversity and balance.”

But Google News isn’t a newspaper; it’s a newstand.

Online, few people read only a single news source; they read news and views promiscuously, often seeking multiple accounts on a single event. Online users don’t go to a single front page and only read one newspaper’s accounts of world events. Newspapers are becoming “unbundled” so that the competitive unit of analysis is the story, not the newspaper as a whole.

In these changed conditions, opposing Google News is like opposing newstands — for Google is the Internet’s equivalent of a newstand. It’s where consumers go to scan the options on offer and pick the most appealing source for the information they require.

In competitive newpaper markets where revenue depends on newstand sales, newspapers tailor their headlines and front pages to appeal to casual readers walking past newstands. Nobody would make a fuss if passers-by dared get their news by scanning the headlines at their corner shop without buying a paper.
Once we start thinking of Google as a newstand rather than a competing newspaper, the solution is simple: Adapt to writing headlines that encourage Google users to click through to the full story on your site — rather than your competitors’.

There is some anecdotal evidence that some news organisations are starting to think about attracting Googlers the same way. Search engine opimization in online headers is the online equivalent of the witty 72-point splash on dead trees.

To lump Yahoo! in this argument makes even less sense. Unlike Google, Yahoo! sources its news content under licence from traditional news organisations — and even produces some of its own journalism, in the form of Kevin Sites. If you don’t want Yahoo! to compete with your site for eyeballs, the solution is simple: Don’t licence your stories to them.

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Media sites benefit from search engines

Posted by Martin Stabe on 30 March 2006 at 17:01
Tags: Agence France Presse, BBC, Google, Journalism, Online, Yahoo

Media web sites are among the major benefitiaries of traffic from search engines, new research from Nielson//Netratings suggests.

About 84 per cent of UK Internet users — 23 million people — used a search engine in January and clicked through to half a billion links every month, the research found.

Although universities and online retailers were major benefitiaries, media web sites also benefited. Thirty per cent of search engine users visited broadcast media sites and a quarter visited current events and global news sites.

In both categories, Nielsen//Netratings identified the BBC as the leading brand.

Google dominates the search market, conducting 64 per cent of searches.

“It is important not to forget that Google’s phenomenal success has had implications and benefits for others far beyond Google itself,” Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst at Nielsen//Netratings said in a statement released today.

“Many brands and sectors owe their successes to the search industry. As innovations in the search technology increase, such as customised or local search, this reliance on search for visitors is likely to increase.”

Not everyone in the news business sees it this way.

Last year, material from Agence France Presse was removed from Google News after the French wire service sued the seach engine, alleging copyright infingement.

The World Association of Newspapers recently announced that it intends to “challenge the exploitation of content” by online news aggregators like Google News. At the recent Online Publishers Association conference in London, one panel discussion supported this position. At the conference and in his Guardian column, Jeff Jarvis criticised the WAN’s stance.

Journalists have routinely scratched their heads about the odd results the Google News algorithm returns on major news stories. The Guardian’s Bobbie Johnson has an excellent example of this today.