Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 6 November 2007 at 12:09
Tags: Google, Google Maps, Google News, Telegraph Media Group, Telegraph.co.uk, Times Online, telegraph, video
An organisation that produces no news at all is the third most trusted brand for delivering news, Phil Harding, notes from the floor, and asks the panel to respond. The answers suggest that the debates about the role of the seach engine have moved on about the relatively simple concerns about driving traffic versus the question of whether copyright law demands aggregators should seek permission before indexing sites.
“We’ve only recently woken up to the problem with Google,” says Peter Wright of the Mail on Sunday says. “Things move quickly, and what seems like a big threat To get traffic on a web site you have to publish free and encourage as many people as possible to read it. We encourage people like Drudge to aggregate our content because it means more people are going to come to the site.”
He says: “Things move quickly, and what seems like a big threat To get traffic on a web site you have to publish free and encourage as many people as possible to read it. We encourage people like Drudge to aggregate our content because it means more people are going to come to the site.”
Mark Dodson of GMG regional and Telegraph editor-in-chief and Will Lewis agreed that it is important to driving traffic.
But Anne Spackman gave the most forceful answer: “I think Google is hugely dangerous“, noting the search giant’s moves into collecting ever more personal information. “It’s the number one topic of conversation in News Corp.”
Speaking to Press Gazette afterward, Spackman said Google was now having a significant effect on the way Times Online does business. It’s dominance of the search market means the slightest changes to its search algorithm has major impact on traffic, she said, pointing to last moth’s change that had a major impact on the Washington Post.com’s PageRank. Google’s ownership of Doubleclick means it now controls an enormous part of advertising inventory. Google Maps, Spackman predicted, will transform local newspapers as Google enters the geographically-defined advertising market.
Online Video
Responding to another question, about online video, Spackman sas one of the most successful pieces of video on the web site was created when they handed Baghdad correspondent Stephen Farrell a camera and said “point it at interesting stuff”. This resulted in some amazing detail about everyday life in Baghdad, such as private military company vehicles with signs warning anyone approaching within 20 feet will be shot.
Will Lewis, meanwhile, says the advantage newspaper video has over television is that it is non-linear, allowing people to jump around in the running order. Telegraph TV recorded 2 million downloads this month, he says.
