Tag: Google News

  • Google noose?

    The A.P. will work with portals and other partners who legally license our content and will seek legal and legislative remedies against those who don’t. We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.”

    That’s what Associated Press Chairman William Dean Singleton said, in what is obviously a salvo against news aggregating services like Google. The ‘misguided legal theories’ here refer to the ‘fair use’  legal doctrine that news aggregators and search services have been using to use snippets of articles. AP’s concern is that many of these services have been making revenues out of packaging these stories. Also, while AP does have deals with Google and several other engines for some of their content, apparently search throws up material not covered by these agreements.

    Interesting to note that AP had sued MoreOver (Verisign) for snippeting and linking to its news, and Google had signed a deal with AP 2 weeks prior to that. That case was settled, though I have not yet been able to get details. AP now has plans to launch own news site – a “new search pages that point users to the latest and most authoritative sources of breaking news”.  It suggests a system to track content – one that would create, in effect, “fingerprints” of content that could track usage and links. Journalism Online is another entity that wants to help newspapers and magazines charge for their content online.You can read the interview with Steven Brill, who has started it with two others, here.

    Google’s contention is that they’re directing a lot of traffic to the news sites, and any newspaper that doesn’t want to be part of Google News can do just that. Scott Karp says at Publishing 2.0, Google has played to its strength and wrested control of the distribution of news. Interesting comments too. Google allowed users to find content that they wanted, and became the start page when people wanted to find something on the web. That’s something media companies still aren’t doing right, and in between, Google managed to push in the ads, and make a few dollars. Erick Schonfeld, at TechCrunch has an interesting take on this – he points out that (in the US) Google News is behind Yahoo News as well as the sites of the NYT, and Google is actually exposing news, and helping other sites make money too. He argues that while Google does play a part in getting traffic to sites, ultimately it is the content that gets readers and sets the price. Jackie Hai explains how the “The AP syndication model works in an economy of information scarcity, whereas the web represents an economy of abundance.” I recently read about Google Web Elements, which allows Google products to be added to any website. That includes Google News and takes distribution to a whole new level.

    Though the AP issue is mostly an American one, there are similar sentiments being echoed in Europe too. According to NYT, Belgian Danish and British newspapers want Google to reach agreements with them before using their content. Though each country will have its own dynamics as far as news distribution and maturity of media platform goes, these cases are sure to set precedents.

    The media landscape is changing. Its not just that old media is changing rules to figure out revenue models. Its about an airline becoming a content ‘publisher‘, individuals becoming advertising mediums, services like TwitterGrep popping up to utilise the instancy of Twitter… and so on. As Jackie Hai mentioned in his article, the participatory web has blurred the lines between content producer, distributor and consumer. We play all three at different times.

    The measures that newspapers have or are making to earn revenues on the web seem to be insufficient. That includes online advertising, micro payments etc. I increasingly feel that a repair might not be enough. Perhaps a complete overhaul is the ask. The fingerprinting does spark a thought about the role of individual journalists, and the importance they should have in the new system. The web is increasingly becoming a relationship based medium where personal equity and trust are currencies. Perhaps the corporate newspaper needs to be replaced with a more human and humane network, perhaps it should create a core competency on the web in specific news sections – these could be geography based, maybe there is an opportunity for an aggregator in the challenges of hyperlocal news.  Perhaps it can even be category or genre based. Traditional concepts, but built with a social web perspective. Perhaps they should build a legion of citizen reporters who are paid according to the quality of their contributions . After all there is always a need for quality driven and trustworthy news and analysis. The need remains, but the readers’ wants of delivery platform, timing etc have changed.

    The recent (and sometimes) drastic measures taken by Indian newspapers shows that its not as impervious as it was considered. That gives more reason to prepare for a changing landscape. To start figuring out consumption patterns ,  multimedia possibilities, cost implications, distribution dynamics and revenue streams on digital platforms. Maybe they’re all waiting for PTI to fight Google, or is it Yahoo Buzz 😐

    until next time, a new sprint

  • A rocky future ?

    The video that marked the end of Rocky Mountain News, a daily newspaper in Denver, would have a sobering effect on anyone who’s worked in the industry. The newspaper printed its final edition on Feb 27th, 55 days short of its 150th birthday. And there’s no succour when The Business Insider points out a list of 9 newspapers that are likely to fold. Newspapers in the US are still in shock at how an industry that was once really profitable seems to be on the path of extinction. Gawker is a good place to keep track. The reasons for decline are many – the rapid technological advances, changing consumption habits, newspapers not reacting early enough – to name a few. That’s a track we have walked several times, so I shall move on.

    What are newspapers doing to survive? A few examples. The Hearst Corporation, which publishes the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Albany Times Union, and has interests in an additional 43 daily and 72 non-daily newspapers, is going to charge for some of its online content. The New York Times fights on, bringing out something new on a regular basis, the latest being the version 2 of their popular iPhone app, which offers extensive support for offline reading. (via RWW) It is also starting a neighbourhood blog project, which will have content from editors as well as citizen journalists, and they are planning to target local businesses for ads. (via TechCrunch) Across the pond, FT reports that the UK’s top regional newspaper groups have banded together to negotiate with the government as they seek urgent help to save further titles from closure.  Meanwhile, The Guardian has announced its Open Platform, which will allow developers to use its content (from 1999)  in myriad ways. The more interesting part is what it states  on the Partner Program page “You can display your own ads and keep your own revenue. We will require that you join our ad network in the future.”A very innovative approach!!

    Even content reccomendation services, like Loomia, used on sites such as WSJ, are looking to get revenues for their publishers. Meanwhile, advice is pouring in, from all quarters. Social Media Explorer has an excellent post on how journalists can leverage social media. This Mashable post shows “10 ways newspapers are using social media to save the industry”. This not only includes suggestions, but also tools that are available for free. I know at least a couple of journalists here who also use Twitter for story ideas, opinions etc.

    Debates still rage on the role that newspapers play in the community, and whether its loss is something much beyond that of just a source of news. One view is that society is losing a watchdog, and that stories are reported because of full time journalists, and that in a world, where all content is free, no news gathering will happen, because there is a price to it. But there are those who think otherwise. This is a good read, on that counter view. Some recent studies would support the latter. In fact, it raises a good point about revenue, which we’ll come to in a while. But both agree that to survive, newspapers have to quickly figure out how to factor the net into their business model, whether it is too late, only time can tell.

    As this article points out, the two revenue sources of newspapers – circulation and advertising, are linked. When content becomes free (the net has forced that) people are no longer interested in paying for it offline, which essentially means that advertisers don’t get the reach that they used to, from newspapers. And projections suggest that its not just offline ad revenues that are in a free fall, online newspaper ad revenues will continue to decline in 2009. Whether the state of the online component is a function of recession, is debatable. After all, when it comes to advertising on the net, even the biggest of newspapers have a formidable foe – Google. Google, which is now putting ads in Google  News, when you search for a particular topic. Remember that Google news is only an aggregator, and as of now, there are no updates of revenue sharing arrangement with the news sources.

    Newspapers are still producing content that people want. Only, there are other sources too now.  More than the assets required to generate the content (editorial staff and related infrastructure expenses), it is the delivery platform (press, newsprint, and even the distribution) that is costing the newspaper. Now consider this, with rapid technological advances, it is becoming easier for newspapers to generate the same content, and perhaps at a lesser cost (fewer reporters combined with crowd sourcing, for example) There is still some cost involved in this, and so, it is debatable whether all the content generated should be given free online. If some thought can be applied to utilising other delivery platforms which are cheaper, a revenue model scalable with costs incurred could be achieved. In any case, newspapers never made money out of content directly. They built audiences around the content they provided, and then leveraged that audience to create a revenue model in which advertisers paid to reach that audience. Maybe it is time to rekindle that relationship with the customers and give him more options than the ‘one size fits all’ newspaper.

    The time is ripe for Indian newspapers (especially the English dailies) to do some experimenting.  I wonder if its a good idea to treat the newspaper’s web presence as a separate business unit. Rather than blindly putting all the news available in the physical paper online for free,  start from scratch on the web, have a separate news gathering process (or attribute a part of the overall cost to this unit), start figuring out the requirements of consumers, allow some customisation,  (the net allows a lot already, but its still worth a shot in India) play around with local/sub local content, (they’ve to work fast on this one, since Twitter is also working on local news updates)  work on the digital delivery platforms, deliver more targeted consumers to advertisers with customised solutions rather than broadcast style ads, and maybe a fate similar to the US counterparts can be averted.

    until next time, newspaper