Google Newswire
Monday, September 03, 2007
There was a lot of news made last month out of nothing. The fact that nothing happened 12 months after Google made an ominous deal with the AP was, in fact, quite newsworthy. Many speculated that the agreement was just a payment to allow Google News to avoid royalties and continuing to run as intended (...the kind of agreement that YouTube would love). Turns out that the timetable for unveiling something was 13 months instead. That something was the minor footnote that Google is now hosting AP news on its own servers... as well as articles from the AFP, CP, and PA. An example here shows the story being reported on by the Canadian Press, but delivered by Google.com. This partnership as it stands now is not particularly innovative. Yahoo has been delivering articles from these newswires on its website for years. Newspapers, TV stations, and many other media sites do the same thing. For publishers, however, that is just the problem. They may not readily admit it, but newspapers need newswires. For over a century, they have allowed regional media to cost-effectively deliver national and international news. Yahoo News adopted this model long ago. That was never too surprising given its history as a content-centric destination (and the most visited site on the Internet). Google, on the other hand, rose to prominence as a middle man. Tell them what you're looking for... and be on your way. Later, they started showing ads alongside search results like GoTo / Overture had pioneered. That seemed like a fair deal to get a free, quality search engine. Then they started showing ads on other people's websites with AdSense and providing bloggers with free tools to let people publish their own websites. That was another good idea, even if it led to quite a bit of spam. Meanwhile, Yahoo's Publisher Network hasn't gained the same amount of traction, and their web content has always been focused on keeping people on Yahoo's servers (Geocities, 360, etc.) so the two models have peacefully coexisted.
Now Google is dipping its feet further into content hosting with Google News 2.0 and other initiatives like Google Base or Book Search. Google becoming a publisher instead of just a content locator or aggregator is one of the most dramatic underlying changes taking place on the Internet today. Media outlets better be taking notes. The advertising networks running on those sites better be paying attention. If Google becomes a destination instead of a middle man, then you both lose. It sounds like good business for Google, but they're still not hedging their bets. They're still happy to send people elsewhere as long as AdSense or DoubleClick ads are shown.
The question is: does the partnership makes sense for the newswires? Certainly the future of news is online, and the AP/AFP/CP/PA would all be blind to ignore the 800 pound gorilla. However, there are thousands of media outlets paying for newswire subscriptions worldwide. They provide countless articles everyday to fill up print issues and websites around which publishers sell advertising. If Google begins to pervasively deliver news from their server while showing only their advertising, that cuts out a lot of revenue for many different companies. Of course, your local newspaper is still going to subscribe to newswires even though they made a deal with Google. I just wonder how much longer they are going to be able to afford the fees when their ad revenue declines thanks to Google News, iGoogle, and Google OneBox results. Labels: advertising, Google, media, newswires, Yahoo
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