Guardian: Google News to publish agencies’ copy. The announcement that Google is to publish news content on its own site is likely to be met with some concern from the news industry, which has struggled to work out whether the web giant’s activities across video, advertising and book publishing are a threat or an opportunity.Google News business product manager Josh Cohen rejected the idea that the move would worry publishers.”The flip side is that there will be more room on Google News for more of their original content, which will be pushed higher up the results.“
The most interesting part of this deal is that the Associated Press is one of Google’s news providers. Yet the AP is owned by the news organizations.
For some time now, it’s been clear that the interests of AP and its members have been diverging. This is the clearest evidence yet.
Meanwhile, the deal is another proof that Google’s insistence of non-competition with news organizations is utter garbage, and has been for some time.
on Sep 1st, 2007 at 8:23 pm
[…] rely on wire copy to fill both their virtual and their real pages. Dan Gillmor’s thoughts are here. Google, news, newspapers | Share This | Related […]
on Sep 1st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
[…] rely on wire copy to fill both their virtual and their real pages. Dan Gillmor’s thoughts are here. google, news, newspapers | Share […]
on Sep 1st, 2007 at 9:55 pm
[…] Dan Gillmor’s thoughts on this irony echo mine (albeit in much more succinct way) […]
on Sep 2nd, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Dan,
See my post “Google deal uncovers truth that AP is now a competitor to newspapers, and papers are suckers for being members of it”
at The Future of News.
(Steve Boriss)
on Sep 2nd, 2007 at 1:02 pm
While there are likely to be some yet-unknown implications to the Google/news service deal, this post and most of the commentary I’ve seen so far is a bit apocalytic, I think.
AP doesn’t sell Google its “state wire” with local news that originates from our papers, so that traffic isn’t affected. Neither is organic search.
What changes is that Google News readers won’t click on one of the multiple newspaper sources previously listed by Google News for basic AP content. That’s better for readers, isn’t a big traffic source for us, and could even clear the way for better display and availability of the genuinely unique material newspaper websites feature.
Anybody whose business plan revolves around drive-by traffic from incidental links to generic AP stories is in deeper trouble than this post suggests.
on Sep 2nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Not being apocalyptic, just (I think) realistic when I say that AP is really starting to look like a competitor to its owners… and that Google is not, when it’s all said and done, a business friend of the newspaper industry. (I’m a big fan of Google in most respects, as you know, and think the company is providing an excellent service with its news site.)
on Sep 2nd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
[…] Google Now Officially Competing with Newspapers; So is AP – Dan Gillmor “The most interesting part of this deal is that the Associated Press is one of Google’s news providers. Yet the AP is owned by the news organizations.” (tags: internet vertical search news aggregators google googlenews newspapersites journalism ap) […]