Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Follow the user - digital news in a digital world
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Carlo d’Asaro Biondo, President, EMEA Strategic Relationships at Google, gave a speech today at the
Munich Media Days Conference
, outlining the progress made by the Digital News Initiative made since April 2015, including
the launch, today, of an €150m Innovation Fund for the European news sector
. The full text of his speech is included here.
Thanks for that introduction and for having me to speak today.
It’s an honour to be here at the Munich Media Days. The theme of this conference is how the media can find success in this era of digital disruption. And the theme of this talk suggests the answer: “follow the user”.
A lot has already been said at this conference about how today’s users interact with news.
What do we know? They are moving very fast to mobile - two thirds of smartphone users are consuming news on mobile devices. They love video, they love speed. They follow the news through social channels and apps. They really dislike intrusive ads (more on that later!)
That’s a snapshot, but it illustrates the scale of the challenge that you face in imagining the future of news - and that we face too.
News is - and will remain - a hugely important part of the information eco-system. At Google we recognise that. And we want to play our part in building a successful and sustainable relationship between publishers, technology and the user. We want high quality journalism to thrive for the long term.
Today I want to update you on the progress we are making in that three-way relationship.
It was just nine months ago - not too far from here in Davos - that we met with a group of European publishers and agreed to form the Digital News Initiative, or DNI.
The goal was simple: to encourage a more sustainable news ecosystem -- and promote innovation in digital journalism -- by promoting ongoing collaboration and dialogue between the tech and news sectors.
And we agreed at the outset that this would be an open collaboration - everyone involved in Europe’s digital news industry - large or small, established or newcomer - would be welcome to participate.
I’m delighted to say that today we are working together with more than 120 European partners across the news and tech sectors, including many of the most important names in global journalism. Die Zeit, FAZ and Der Spiegel here in Germany, the Guardian, Financial Times, the BBC, The Economist, La Stampa, El Pais, Les Echos, Euronews and many, many others.
But I want to make one thing very clear. Getting involved in the Digital News Initiative is not about buying into Google’s worldview or selling your soul. There are no contracts or conditions. You can choose to get involved in any or all of the elements of the DNI. It’s open to everyone, and it is all about working together.
So, what are we working on together?
Product Development
The DNI has three pillars. The first concerns Product Development. When we asked news publishers what Google could do to help build a more sustainable future for digital journalism, three words dominated their answers. Engineering and Mountain View!
When I announced the Digital News Initiative back in April, the publishers were cautious - perhaps rightly so. They wanted to see commitment to the project from the highest levels at Google. Let me quote from an article that Tony Danker, Chief Strategy Officer at the Guardian, wrote at the time:
“Can today’s initiative be a genuine partnership between Google and journalism, and thereby a tide to lift all boats? This would require Google’s leadership to see both mission and method here and to realise the real benefits for users. It would see them deploy their best engineering brains to want to fix the problem. It would result in fresh thinking within the product and engineering organisation at Google...It would see this thinking and this partnership spread globally. In short, it would mean more work in Mountain View than Brussels.”
Quite a challenge. But I firmly believe we are delivering upon it.
Over the past 6 months we have engaged in detailed discussions between publishers and Google’s best engineering and product minds to rethink the way users consume and interact with news and technology in this mobile age. The commitment goes right to the very top of Google - our new chief executive Sundar Pichai is closely involved in the project.
Two weeks ago we saw the first fruits of this collaboration when we announced a new initiative called
Accelerated Mobile Pages
, which aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web.
The essence of this project is speed and openness. Today, users are increasingly consuming their news on the mobile web. But every time a mobile web page takes too long to load, potential readers will abandon it and publishers lose the opportunity to earn revenue through advertising or subscriptions.
The AMP project aims to make loading lightning fast. Under its open source framework, publishers will be able to build light-weight web pages which will still include rich content like video, graphics and ads, but will load instantly. The same code will work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant, no matter what type of phone or tablet you’re using.
And publishers will remain in control of their content and advertising. Publishers will continue to host their own web pages and will be able keep their choice of ad networks. It’s also a key aim of the project to support subscriptions and paywalls.
Although the conversations that led to this project started in Europe, we are pleased to have started this open-source initiative with more than 30 partners globally - including publishers like the New York Times and NewsCorp, technology platforms like Twitter and Pinterest, analytics partners like Adobe and Chartbeat, and pure digital players like Vox and Buzzfeed.
We’re just at the beginning of an exciting journey, but we expect AMPs to be live in Google Search in early 2016, and you can try out a demo right now on your phone or tablet.
Just type
g.co/ampdemo
into your mobile browser
You’ll see a Google Search page and then type in a popular news query like Syria or the name of one of the publications involved in the trial, for example the FAZ. You’ll see it’s very fast, that means more traffic and more opportunities for monetisation. Most importantly, it offers a great experience for the user.
The
AMP project
is about ensuring that the World Wide Web remains fast, vibrant and compelling. And in doing so, to ensure that publishers - large and small - can have their content presented Instantly Everywhere, without having to pursue a deal with proprietary platforms.
We’ve been thrilled at the reaction we’ve had so far - we’ve had expressions of interest from hundreds of publishers and platforms around the world - and we invite others to get involved.
But don’t get too engrossed in the demo - I’ve got plenty more to tell you about!
The AMP project is just one element of a much broader conversation with publishers across a range of areas - mobile, video, monetisation and data. Some developments will be small and incremental, others we hope can be transformative. The point is that these decisions are no longer being made in a vacuum, but as a result of consultation and collaboration with news publishers.
We’re excited about the opportunities and we’ll have more to announce very soon.
Training and research
The second pillar of the DNI relates to training and research. A phrase we use very often at Google is: focus on the user and all else will follow. And of course news editors put great emphasis on a similar phrase - know your reader.
But today, simply understanding - either through gut instinct or metrics - what your readers or viewers are interested in is only half the battle. The evolution of the technology means that the way users consume, interact with and share news content has become central to the process. Journalism - and the technology that delivers the journalism to users - are two sides of the same coin.
In our conversations with publishers we’ve heard there is a great appetite in newsrooms to learn how to make the most of digital tools for journalism. And through our newly established
News Lab
team we have already run training sessions for more than two thousand journalists across Europe, with newsroom visits, conferences, workshops and more.
In the course of those sessions we got great feedback from newsrooms on how we can make our tools for journalists more useful. One example is
Google Search Trends
, which allows journalists to see what readers in their country or region are searching for. The feedback we had from newsrooms was: “that’s great, but for the purpose of journalism it really needs to be up to the minute.”
So, after consultation with dozens of journalists, in June we launched real time Search Trends - and many newsrooms are now using those insights to shape and inform their journalism.
And because we’d like this kind of collaboration to go deeper, we have for the first time hired a dedicated team to work with newsrooms in Europe.
Allow me to introduce our newest News Lab recruit - Isa Sonnenfeld - who many of you will already know from her work with Twitter. Stand up Isa!
Isa will be based here in Germany in Berlin, partnering with journalism organisations such as the European Journalism Centre, the Global Editors Network and the International News Media Association to create training programmes and tools tailored to the needs of newsrooms.
Isa will be here throughout the day and would love to catch up with you in one of the breaks.
We also believe that research and measurement are vital to the future of the European news ecosystem. In order to follow the user it is very important to know what the user is doing, how his and her habits are changing. So we have been supporting the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in its effort to produce the Digital News Report, which has quickly become the most authoritative guide to the fast changing patterns of news consumption.
Before the Reuters Institute launched the first Digital News report in 2012, much of this essential data simply didn’t exist. I’m delighted that as a result of our support the Reuters Institute has today added a further six countries to their survey - Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Poland and Portugal - bringing the number of countries covered to twenty.
Innovation Fund launching today
The third pillar of the Digital News Initiative is the Innovation Fund. Earlier this year we announced that Google will make 150 million euros available over the next three years to support innovation in digital journalism in Europe. I’m pleased to announce that the fund OPENS TODAY for applications.
News organisations innovate every day - they start with a blank canvas and they fill it with compelling content. News is by definition innovation.
But because the machinery of getting your product out every day is complicated, it’s very hard to find the time and resources to experiment with new approaches to journalism and production.
The DNI Innovation Fund aims to tackle that problem by providing non-refundable support for projects that demonstrate new thinking in the practice of digital journalism, that promote the development of new business models or maybe even change the way users consume digital news.
The Fund is open to established publishers, online-only players, news start-ups, collaborative partnerships and individuals based in Europe. We’re looking for applications for both large and small projects. There is a Prototype track, which is open to everyone, including individuals established in the EU or EFTA, which will offer funding of up to €50.000 per project. And companies and organizations can also submit larger projects, requiring up to €1 million of funding. Projects can focus on your organisation specifically, or be collaborative with other industry players.
If you want to apply to the Innovation Fund, you can find all the details on our website
digitalnewsinitiave.com
. We will make the first funds available early in the new year.
The process will be inclusive and transparent, overseen by a Council including leading players in European journalism. And let me add that there is no tie-in with any of Google’s products.
Why are we launching an Innovation Fund? It comes back to the feedback we’ve had in our many conversations with publishers. The DNI is all about collaboration and engagement - and as I have described, we think there is much that Google can do to help build a more sustainable future for journalism. But no--one has all the answers, and maybe there are solutions out there that no-one has thought of yet. The fund aims to stimulate that new thinking.
Adblockers
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t say a word about the issue that every publisher is currently talking about - Ad blockers.
Ads are important - they have funded the news media for centuries and they fund the majority of the web today. The EU online advertising market grew to 30 billion euros in 2014. That is money that funds journalism, provides jobs and keeps internet services diverse and accessible.
But ad blockers are growing because consumers are having a bad experience with ads - people hate bad ads: ads that are intrusive, video ads that interrupt, ads that won’t get out of the way and block the content you are trying to enjoy.
We agree - consumers deserve a better ad experience. We - like many other good actors - work to remove the worst offenders. And we work on better alternatives - seamless and useful search ads and skippable ads on YouTube.
The problem is that Ad blockers that block all ads are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, threatening the livelihood of good content creators who are trying to do the right thing.
We need to find a solution -- and fast. We need to work together to create a standard for better ads online. A standard that addresses the bad ad experience that consumers are exposed to. A standard that in time will persuade consumers that they no longer need to use ad blockers.
We are committed to finding a solution that aligns the interests of advertisers, content creators and consumers, and allows readers to continue enjoying great content.
Partnership is better than dispute
The experience of the past year makes me optimistic we can do it. If you had told me twelve months ago that Google would be working together with more than 100 publishers in Europe to build a better web and a more sustainable future for the news industry I think I would have said you were dreaming.
We still have a long way to go, but I am convinced we have proven to each other - and to everyone else - that working together is much more effective than the alternatives.
Partnership is better than dispute. In a fast changing world, technology solutions are better than regulation. Making friends is so much better than making enemies.
Let’s keep going!
Thank you.
Posted by Al Verney, Head of Corporate Communications
Digital News Initiative: €150m Innovation Fund now open
Thursday, October 22, 2015
In April, we launched the
Digital News Initiative
, a partnership with eleven European news organisations to support high quality journalism through technology and innovation. The initiative is open to anyone involved in Europe’s digital news industry, large or small, established or newcomer, and since launch, more than 120 organisations have signed up to participate. Today, we’re excited to open up the
DNI Innovation Fund
for applications, and we hope that many more people will get involved.
The ambition and intent of the Fund is bold: to spark new thinking, which could come from anywhere in the news ecosystem, to give news organisations - of all sizes - the space to try some new things. We’ve set aside up to €150 million for that purpose, which we’ll make available in the form of no-strings-attached awards over the next three years.
There will be at least two application rounds per year. The first one starts today, and finishes on December 4th. The next one will begin in Spring 2016 and details will be announced via the Digital News Initiative website.
Here’s a quick rundown of how the Fund works.
Projects
We’re looking for projects that demonstrate new thinking in the practice of digital journalism; that support the development of new business models, or maybe even change the way users consume digital news. Projects can be highly experimental, but must have well-defined goals and have a significant digital component. There is no requirement to use any Google products. Successful projects will show innovation and have a positive impact on the production of original digital journalism and on the future sustainability of the news business.
Eligibility
The Fund is open to established publishers, online-only players, news start-ups, collaborative partnerships and individuals based in the EU and EFTA countries.
Funding
There are three categories of funding available:
Prototype projects
: open to organisations - and to individuals - that meet the eligibility criteria, and require up to €50k of funding. These projects should be very early stage, with ideas yet to be designed and assumptions yet to be tested. We will fast-track such projects and will fund 100% of the total cost.
Medium projects
: open to organisations that meet the eligibility criteria and require up to €300k of funding. We will accept funding requests up to 70% of the total cost of the project.
Large projects
: open to organisations that meet the eligibility criteria and require more than €300k of funding. We will accept funding requests up to 70% of the total cost of the project. Funding is capped at €1 million.
Exceptions to the €1 million cap are possible for large projects that are collaborative (e.g., international, sector-wide, involving multiple organisations) or that significantly benefit the broad news ecosystem.
How to apply
Visit the
Digital News Initiative website
for full details, including eligibility criteria, terms and conditions, and application forms. Applications must be made in English and the submission deadline for the first round of funding is 4th December 2015.
Governance
We’ve consulted widely to ensure that the Fund has inclusive and transparent application and selection processes. Confidentiality is critical; applicants should not share business-sensitive or highly confidential information. Full details can be found on the DNI website.
Initial selection of projects will be done by a Project team, composed of a mix of experienced industry figures and Google staff, who will review all applications for eligibility, innovation and impact. They’ll make recommendations on funding for Prototype and Medium projects to the Fund’s Council, which will have oversight of the Fund’s selection process. The Council will vote on Large projects.
Council members:
Joao Palmeiro, President of the Portuguese publishers association and Chair of the DNI Innovation Fund Council
Alexander Asseily, Founder & CEO of State, Founder of Jawbone
Arianna Ciccone, Co-Founder and Director of the Perugia International Journalism Festival
Bartosz Hojka, CEO of Agora S.A.
Katharina Borchert, CEO Spiegel Online
Veit Dengler, CEO, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Rosalia Lloret, Head of Institutional Relations, Online Publishers’ Association Europe
Bruno Patino, Dean of Sciences-Po Journalism School
Murdoch MacLennan, CEO of the Telegraph Media Group
Madhav Chinnappa, Head of Strategic Relations, News and Publishers, Google
Torsten Schuppe, Director of Marketing EMEA, Google
Ronan Harris, Vice President, Google
We will make our first awards early in 2016. We look forward to receiving your
applications
!
Posted by Ludovic Blecher, DNI Innovation Fund Manager, Google
Let's work together to support quality journalism
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Editor's note: At the
FT Media Conference
in London, Carlo D'Asaro Biondo, Google's President of Strategic Partnerships, Europe, outlined Google's commitment to working with the news industry, and announced the
Digital News Initiative
, a partnership to support high-quality journalism in Europe through technology and innovation. The following is the full text of his speech
.
Thank you Richard for that introduction and for inviting me to speak today.
Now, you might have seen in
today’s papers
that we’ve launched the
Digital News Initiative
together with leading European publishers.
If you did see that story it’s worth spending a moment thinking about how you read it. Maybe you bought a newspaper. Many of you will have read it on your tablet or mobile. Maybe it was in your Facebook feed, or you saw it on Twitter or via Google News. If you haven’t read the story yet, don’t worry - I’m about to tell you all about it using the most ancient form of media - the spoken word. Indeed, it’s interesting that today the spoken word - events such as this one - has itself become an important part of the business mix for modern news organisations.
The aim of today’s conference is to
“
explore the radical changes the media industry is experiencing
”
and to talk about
“
new opportunities for growth
”
.
No-one doubts that the changes are truly radical and challenging. But as we will see today, the opportunities in digital media are practically limitless.
The tools available to journalists today, to access information, to gather and create content and disseminate it to a global audience, represent extraordinary advances compared with what was available just a few years ago. And the quality and ambition of news journalism seems to grow year after year.
The way we consume news is changing dramatically too. More people are accessing more information than ever in history. The number of smartphone users will soon exceed
2 billion
. According to Mary Meeker the typical smartphone user checks his or her device
150 times a day
.
This represents an opportunity to reach an audience far beyond the morning paper or evening news show of the past. The
Reuters Digital News Report
found that in Europe in 2014, 37% of us consumed news on a mobile device each week.
Everyone recognises the opportunities the internet offers for the creation and dissemination of journalism. But the
“new opportunities for growth”
remain elusive. When I talk to publishers in Europe I hear deep concern about their ongoing ability to fund great journalism.
This is felt particularly on the continent. Perhaps the British and the Americans have it easier. In English it is possible to build huge global audiences - the New York Times, the Daily Mail and the Guardian have all proved this. But I’m from Italy, and it is much more difficult for Italian newspapers - and those from other countries with a smaller language base.
So, the challenge for European publishers is clear, but what is Google’s role?
First of all:
Google recognises and admires high quality journalism. As a strong advocate for the free flow of information we know the crucial role it plays in democratic societies.
We recognise that technology companies and news organisations are part of the same information ecosystem. We want to play our part in the common fight to find more sustainable models for news.
I firmly believe that Google has always wanted to be a friend and partner to the news industry, but I also accept we’ve made some mistakes along the way. We are a teenage “tech” company after all!
Over the years, Google’s relationship with news and the news industry has often been misunderstood and - dare I say it - sometimes misreported. So let me take a moment or two to set out how we work with the news industry.
Through Search and News, we send over 10 billion visits, for free, to publishers globally each month. We’re proud of that, and those readers represent real revenue opportunities for the publishers.
And through our advertising platforms, such as AdSense, we shared 10 billion dollars with publishers around the world in 2014.
Today we have more than 65,000 publishers in Google News, and Iet me be clear that those publishers are in control. They apply to be part of
Google News
. And if at any point they don't want any of their content to appear in Google News or in our Search results, they can opt out by inserting a simple piece of code that instructs us not to index it.
We also work with an increasing number of publishers who want to sell their content directly to consumers, especially on tablets and mobile. Google Play - our app store for the Android operating system - allows news and magazine publishers to offer their content to readers on subscription - whether paid or for free. We are working closely with publishers to improve the visibility and monetisation of their news apps. And today news sources are making their content available on Google Play Newsstand across 19 countries.
We provide publishers with free technology tools to build and engage their audience - whether through YouTube, live broadcasting with Hangouts on Air, or data journalism.
We work with news organisations to make the most of this technology, using it to build an engaged audience. And an engaged audience is essential for successful and sustainable monetisation.
But we think we can do more and better, particularly in Europe. I’m happy to announce here today - alongside a number of European publishers and journalism organisations - the Digital News Initiative to promote high-quality journalism through technology and innovation.
What are we going to do together?
A few months back we held an
“unconference
” called Newsgeist in Phoenix Arizona, bringing together a wide range of publishers, editors and reporters alongside engineers and developers. The idea of an “unconference” is that the audience chooses the agenda, and the title of one of the sessions they chose was:
“What should Google do?”
.
Several major European publishers were there, and their message was loud and clear: MORE COLLABORATION. So, we started a detailed conversation with a number of key European publishers, which has brought us to today.
Our
joint efforts
will be in three key areas.
First,
product development
. We will create a publishers’ working group from across Europe to explore product developments aimed at increasing revenue, traffic and audience engagement. Over the years we have worked on a range of news-related initiatives, but we tended to work in isolation, and the feedback has been that Google can be complicated to work with, and at times unpredictable!
We intend to change that - indeed it is my job to change that!
Second, we will significantly increase our
investment in training and research
. Through our newly established News Lab team we will bring dedicated training resources to European newsrooms for the first time. We are creating training programmes with a number of journalism organisations, including the
European Journalism Centre
,
the Global Editors Network
and
the International News Media Association
.
We will also invest in research into the fast changing media landscape. We are partnering with the Reuters Institute in Oxford to create the deepest and most comprehensive picture of how the consumption of news is evolving in Europe. For 2016 the
Reuters Institute Digital News Report
will be expanded to cover 20 European countries - an essential guide to the changing news landscape.
We will set up a grants programme for academic institutions who wish to carry out research into the growing field of computational journalism. And we will extend our successful
Google Journalism Fellowships programme
to Europe, aimed at students interested in using technology to tell stories in new and dynamic ways.
And thirdly, we have allocated 150 million euros to
stimulating and supporting innovation in digital journalism
within the news industry in Europe, over the next three years. In the feedback we hear from publishers and editors, it is clear that there is a great desire to experiment more freely, but risk-taking comes at a cost. The purpose of this is to make grants available to projects which demonstrate new thinking in digital journalism. No-one knows where the next great idea will come from - but we want to stimulate and nurture ideas that come from those who are closest to the action, from those who know best how journalism is changing. Anyone working on innovation in online news in Europe will be able to apply, including national and regional publishers, new players and pure players.
As someone who has been closely involved in the French digital news innovation fund over the past three years I can say with certainty that the initiative has led to some really inspiring and innovative projects.
Le Monde has built a complete new offering for mobile and tablet that significantly improved engagement with their app, increasing page views and time spent
Slate.fr built a new kind of newsreader, funded by native ads, that surfaces and curates trending content on social networks. It’s a powerful tool for reporters and great for consumers too.
These are just two of the more than 50 projects funded in France, demonstrating how much can be achieved when we talk and work together.
So I’m delighted to say that joining us in announcing the Digital News Initiative are some of the biggest names in European news publishing.
The Guardian
and
The Financial Times
here in the UK
Die Zeit
and
FAZ
from Germany
Les Echos
from France
La Stampa
from Italy
El Pais
from Spain
NRC Media
from the Netherlands
And we all agreed this is not intended to be an exclusive club - any European publisher, big or small, traditional or newcomer, who wishes to take part in any of the elements of the initiative will be welcome.
Journalism organisations - who play such an important role in helping the news industry navigate the transition to digital - are also welcome, and I am pleased to say that we will be partnering with the
European Journalism Center
, the
Global Editors Network
and the
International News Media Association
. And this is just the beginning - we invite others to join us. You can find details on the website:
digitalnewsinitiative.com
- or use any good search engine
To conclude:
It would be wonderful if there was one big idea which could fix everything for the news industry. So let me say this - this initiative is not about Google trying to reinvent journalism or to fix the news industry once and for all. That is neither our responsibility nor something we could hope to achieve.
I should also make it clear that much as we admire quality journalism we have no plans to get involved in creating or commissioning news. Although we seem to be quite good at generating it!
But I can’t promise it will be smooth. At Google we know that innovation is never a linear process. It’s always messy and often happens in random ways. Sometimes - often - we fail.
But I am convinced we will achieve much more if journalism and technology work together rather than apart.
Thank you
Posted by Al Verney, Corporate Communications
TechRaking London: muckrakers tackle climate change
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
A free and robust press is a fundamental pillar of an open and democratic society. Ever since the earliest newspapers, journalists have worked hard to give the public the information they need to bring about better communities. In today’s world, new technologies offer new opportunities for great journalism focused on the public good.
In that spirit, the News Lab at Google is teaming up with
The Center for Investigative Reporting
in 2015 for a series of events that will connect journalists, technologists and designers and develop transformative solutions to some of the challenges faced by communities around the world.
The name of the series is
TechRaking
- a modern twist on an early twentieth century term for investigative journalism, “muckraking” - and our first event will be
in London on March 25th
.
Each TechRaking event will focus on a specific design challenge. The focus of TechRaking London will be climate change. Participants will be asked to design a product or service that engages audiences and inspires them to tackle climate change, while also revealing the scale of the issue in new and insightful ways. Additional TechRaking events, on other themes, will follow in Berlin and Paris, as well as in the US and Canada.
The best ideas from TechRaking, as judged by an independent panel, will come to life as services, products and practices in journalism, thanks to our partnership with
TWG
, who will be providing design and development time to turn top ideas into working prototypes. We hope these collaborations will result in new public tools to help us all ensure journalism, through technology, ensures access to critical information for everyone.
Posted by Ryan Bruno, Manager, News Lab
An update on Google News in Spain
Thursday, December 11, 2014
After 9/11, one of our engineers, Krishna Bharat, realized that results for the query “World Trade Center” returned nothing about the terrorist attacks. And it was also hard to compare the news from different sources or countries because every web site was a silo. That’s how Google News was born and today the service is available in more than 70 international editions, covering 35 languages.
It’s a service that hundreds of millions of users love and trust, including many here in Spain. It’s free to use and includes everything from the world’s biggest newspapers to small, local publications and bloggers. Publishers can choose whether or not they want their articles to appear in Google News -- and the vast majority choose to be included for very good reason. Google News creates real value for these publications by driving people to their websites, which in turn helps generate advertising revenues.
But sadly, as a result of a
new Spanish law
, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable. So it’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain.
For centuries publishers were limited in how widely they could distribute the printed page. The Internet changed all that -- creating tremendous opportunities but also real challenges for publishers as competition both for readers’ attention and for advertising Euros increased. We’re committed to helping the news industry meet that challenge and look forward to continuing to work with our thousands of partners globally, as well as in Spain, to help them increase their online readership and revenues.
Posted by Richard Gingras, Head of Google News
GEN 2014: challenging journalism’s status quo
Monday, May 19, 2014
The countdown has begun. The
Global Editors Network
has announced its shortlist of 75 finalists for the
Data Journalism Awards
, supported by Google and the Knight Foundation. Winners will be named at GEN’s upcoming summit in Barcelona on June 12.
The young field of data journalism--analyzing large datasets to unearth news stories and information--is growing tremendously. The 2014 Data Journalism Awards received a record 520 submissions, 200 more than last year. A total of 65 countries were represented. While some newsrooms around have installed dedicated specialists to focus on reporting based on data, Mirko Lorenz, Director of the 2014 Data Journalism Awards, said solo journalists accounted for the vast majority of submissions. “Journalists are taking it on themselves to use data for projects, for experimentation,” Lorenz said.
GEN champions journalistic innovation, demonstrating how the online world offers great opportunities for the future of journalism. Its summit this year in Barcelona is entitled “Mobile. Video. Data. Challenge the Status Quo.” Sessions and keynotes will revolve around the idea that these three things must be top-of-mind in the modern newsroom.
Speakers
range from the Guardian’s lead digital strategist Wolfgang Blau to Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersch.
This is GEN’s fourth annual summit - take a look below at highlights from last year’s event in Paris.
This year’s summit promises to be three days of hard work and learning - and also a treat. One of the featured speakers will be Ferran Adria, the famed Catalan chef and founder of the restaurant El Bulli. See you in Barcelona.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, Communications, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Working with news publishers in Madrid
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
High-quality content is important to the web and we are committed to working with publishers to ensure that readers find their content. Our Publisher Advisory Council, bringing together our advertising and product teams with top media executives, meets about twice a year since 2009 in different venues in Europe.
The Council’s next session opens tomorrow in Madrid. Although planned months ago, it comes at important time, just as a debate has opened in Spain about whether publishers should be paid for linking their content. At the Advisory Council, we will concentrate on forging win-win business deals.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy
recently made the same point, urging Internet companies and publishers to reinforce their commercial agreements.
The Council’s goal is to create a virtuous circle: more, better engaged users, generating more revenue, and ultimately enabling greater investment in higher quality content. Google drives 10 billion clicks a month to publisher websites for free. Each click represents a business opportunity, offering the chance to show ads, register users and win loyal readers. In 2013, we shared more than $9 billion with our
AdSense
publisher partners.
Beyond our AdSense advertising program, other Google tools allow publishers to make money from their content. DoubleClick offers ways to show display ads. Ad Exchange maximizes the value of ad space on an impression-by-impression basis. YouTube channels, video embeds and YouTube Direct create new opportunities for publishers to create new video sources of revenue.
We are keen to help news organisations make the transition to digital journalism. For 2014 our
Google Journalism Fellowship
will fund 11 students a summer internship with organizations steeped in everything from investigative journalism to press freedom and to those helping the industry figure out its future in the digital age. In Europe, we have partnered with the Global Editors Network on a series of "Editors Lab" events, including this recent
hackathon
in Barcelona. We funded Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s
report
on the future of journalism and Oliver & Ohlbaum’s
report
on the impact of the Internet on journalism.
The Internet lives on the oxygen of information. It needs quality journalism. Commercial agreements with publishers are a win-win solution and preferable to regulations that damage innovation as a pillar of the economic recovery. We are ready to play our part in working with the news industry to find a way for it to thrive in the new digital age.
Posted by Bárbara Navarro, Director Public Policy for Southern Europe
Working with Spanish Publishers
Friday, February 14, 2014
The cafe in our Madrid office was full with guests, news publishers, members of the
Spanish Association of Publishers of Periodicals
(AEEPP) who had come to learn about how web tools could boost their businesses. Under a recently signed partnership, we are working designed to "increase visibility" of their publications online and seek sustainable business models in the digital world.
AEPP members attended a workshop at Google's Madrid offices
It's no secret that the news industry has been through a period of upheaval. As our chief economist Hal Varian noted last year in a
speech
at the Perugia Journalism Festival, while the Internet has made distribution much easier and cheaper, it has also increased the supply of news and competition for readers, challenging traditional business models. At the same time, media consultancy
Oliver & Ohlbaum
recently published a
study
showing that the net is powering the rise of exciting new voices and small players. YouTube stars are building fame online before securing a record deal or a film contract. Newshounds now discover, share, and comment on stories on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Many win-win ways exist for Google and publishers to join forces in the new digital universe. We drive traffic to publishers - ten billion clicks a month around the globe, offering publishers 100,000 business opportunities per minute. In 2013, our
AdSense
program paid out $9 billion a year to web publishers worldwide. Publishers remain free, with the addition of just a few lines of code, to pull out of Google web search and Google News. Publishers also remain free to determine whether to put their articles discovered through Google search behind a paywall.
We have set up a working group to discuss these new digital solutions with the AEEPP members in Spain. Our joint goal, in the association’s own words, is to find tools that new technologies offer publishers to "increase the monetization of their content, give greater visibility to their websites and strengthen their relationship with their own readers." During the recent workshop at our Madrid office, we demoed Webmaster tools, designed to attract readers. We analysed digital advertising solutions. And we explained our fight against spam.
The AEEPP represents Spain’s small and medium-size publishers. They like how all media are equally likely to appear in Google News. Today, more than 25,000 news organizations across the globe make their content available in Google News and other web search engines. We remain open to work with all publishers, big and small, local and national, to help them manage the transition to the new digital age.
Posted by Fran Ruiz Anton, Senior Public Policy Manager, Madrid
Partnering with Belgian news publishers
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Six years ago, Belgium’s French-language news publishers and authors sued Google. They argued that we violated their copyright by displaying snippets in Google News and linking to cached copies of their pages in Google search. Today, we’re delighted to turn the page.
From left to right: Thierry Geerts, Managing Director, Google Belgium; Frans Wauter, representative of the authors' associations; Francois leHodey, representative of the Belgian French language news publishers at the Google office in Brussels.
We have reached an agreement that ends all litigation and represents great news for both us and the newspapers. We continue to believe that our services respect newspaper copyrights and it is important to note that we are not paying the Belgian publishers or authors to include their content in our services. From now on, Google and Belgian French-language publishers will partner on a broad range of business initiatives, in order to:
Promote both the publishers’ and Google’s services
- Google will advertise its services on the publishers’ media, while the publishers will optimise their use of Google’s advertising solutions, in particular
AdWords
to attract new readers.
Increase publishers’ revenue
- by collaborating on making money with content, both via premium models (paywalls, subscriptions), and via advertising solutions such as the
AdSense
platform and the
AdExchange
marketplace;
Increase reader engagement
- by implementing
Google+
social tools, including video
Hangouts
, on news sites, and launching official YouTube channels;
Increase the accessibility of the publishers’ content
- by collaborating on the distribution of the publishers original content on mobile platforms, in particular smartphones and tablets;
This agreement comes at an important moment, in the midst of a debate how best the newspaper industry should adapt to the new digital age. As the Economist recently reported under the enticing headline,
Letting the Baby Dance
, many governments including Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, UK and Canada are considering or have gone ahead with Internet-friendly copyright reforms. At the same time, some European countries including Germany and France are considering an extension of
copyright protection
to excerpts of newspaper articles appearing in search engines’ results. The European Journalism Centre recently outlined why both Google and newspapers would be best off cooperating and
The Reach Group
published independent research reaching a similar conclusion.
We agree. Many win-win ways exist for Google and publishers to join forces in the new digital universe. We drive traffic to publishers - four billion clicks a month around the globe, offering publishers 100,000 business opportunities per minute. Our AdSense program pays out $7 billion a year to web publishers worldwide. Publishers remain free, with the addition of just a few lines of code, to pull out of Google web search and Google News. Publishers also remain free to determine whether to put their articles discovered through Google search behind a paywall.
Instead of continuing to argue over legal interpretations, we have agreed on the need to set aside past grievances in favour of collaboration. This is the same message we would like to send to other publishers around the world - its much more beneficial for us to work together than to fight.
Posted by Thierry Geerts, Managing Director, Google Belgium
Defending the open Web in Germany
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
For years now, you’ve been able to type a few words into your computer and get answers from an ever-growing sea of websites. Soon, however, this could change. The German Parliament this week begins debating a proposal for a new law which threatens to change the web as we’ve known for the last two decades - and make finding online information much more difficult in future.
That’s why today we’re launching an information campaign,
Dein Netz
, to give the facts about the proposed law and to invite you to contribute to the debate, in person and online.
German news publishers are seeking to extend dramatically the reach of copyright law. Today it prevents copying of articles, but the proposals would place restrictions on even a ‘snippet’ of an article, such as is common found in search engine results. Snippets help people understand, compare and evaluate which websites to visit. If enacted, the law would force search engines, news aggregators and many other online services that help people locate information online to contract with publishers in order to show a snippet of what is available.
That would be complete reversal of the legal situation today where the display of snippets is permitted. The European Journalism Centre recently compared this to asking “your
local newsstand
... to pay royalties for exhibiting the papers and magazines” it has on display. From then on, the simple act of linking or displaying snippets would become fraught with legal risk.
It would also be a reversal of the practices we see on the web today. When Google’s web crawler requests copies of pages from a publisher’s website, it is clear from where the request comes, and it is for the publisher to decide whether their server responds. In fact, virtually all publishers welcome crawlers and many voluntarily provide specific additional information to help crawlers find pages (in the form of a
sitemap
). A further set of highly refined controls is also available to publishers through the robots exclusion protocol that we have
blogged
in the past.
The end result is that, as one of many ways people find news content, Google News and Google search sends around four billion clicks through to publishers each month. That’s significant for us because there is no advertising on
Google News
in Europe. But Google is frequently one of the advertising service providers for the major news publishers (even of our most vocal critics in this debate), so our opportunity to make money is when users click on a link and go to the site of of one of our partners in the news industry. Looked at globally and across all web publishing businesses, Google shared $7 billion of advertising revenue last year.
We want to build win-win ways to partner with publishers. What we want to avoid is a system that puts the brakes on the open Internet, limits choice for people looking for information, and dramatically raises the cost of online innovation.
Please take a few minutes to look through our campaign site. Please get involved. You only have a limited amount of time to defend your Internet!
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director, Public Policy, Europe
The facts about our position on French copyright proposals
Thursday, October 18, 2012
There has been some interest around an extract from a note we have prepared about a proposal by French news publishers associations to require search engines to license all of the content that they help users to find across the web.
The web has led to an explosion of content creation, by both professional and citizen journalists. So it's not a secret that we think a law like the one proposed in France and Germany would be very damaging to the internet. We have said so publicly for three years.
In order to shed light on the reasons that lead us to believe that this law is detrimental to French users, innovation on the Internet and ultimately to the news publishers themselves, we decided to post the note in its entirety. We have always been and remain committed to collaborate with French Publishers associations as they experiment and develop sustainable economic models on the Internet.
Posted by Olivier Esper, Director, Public Policy, France
Books on Google Play arrives in France
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Earlier this year, we introduced
Google Play
, a digital entertainment hub where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite apps and movies on your Android phone or tablet. Today we’re adding books to
Google Play
for people in France.
Books on Google Play offers millions of books, including hundreds of thousands of French titles, from new releases to bestsellers and classics. It's easy to find great French authors such as Antonin Varenne, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Fred Vargas and Dominique Sylvain, plus international bestsellers, in the country’s largest ebookstore. With the launch of ebooks, Google Play becomes a one-stop-shop for the very best digital content available on the web.
France is the fifth European country to launch books on Play, following in the footsteps of Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. This follows on our recent
announcement
of a settlement of all outstanding litigation between us and French publishers.
Books on Google Play is all about choice: we’re offering many titles and many ways to access and read them, so that your library is literally at your fingertips no matter where you are. You can choose from great titles from hundreds of award-winning and diverse publishing houses at launch, not to mention the telethousands of international publishers Google works with around the world.
With Google Play you can read on the device of your choice. And with your books in the cloud you can read on the web, a phone, or a tablet and pick up right where you left off. You can discover, purchase and read books on:
Android phones and tablets - you can purchase books in the Google Play Store and begin reading them instantly in the Google Play Books app;
your computer - you can purchase and read books on the Google Play store and read in your web browser; and
iPhones and iPads -- you can read books in the Google Play Books app
We’re happy to make it even easier for all French book lovers to discover and buy whatever they want to read, whether that’s the next bestseller, a new release from their favourite author or a well-loved classic. Whether you’re a bookworm or casual reader, we hope you find something great to read on Google Play.
Posted by Philippe Colombet, Google Books France
Working with Le Monde to aid Tunisian journalism
Friday, February 10, 2012
Update,
February 16
. Google France welcomed five of the six Tunisian journalists at its offices for a lunch to hear about their experiences in Paris and to discuss progress of freedom of expression in their homeland.
In a single, magnificent moment, journalists in Tunisia liberated themselves from the shackles of censorship. They no longer were forced to regurgitate government propaganda and finally could write what they wanted. Instead, they were confronted with the challenges of freedom.
We are teaming up with the prestigious French newspaper
Le Monde
to help tackle this crucial challenge. Six Tunisian journalists are coming to Paris to work for three months in the Le Monde newsroom. As the
paper explained
, the journalists will help cover daily news and the upcoming French Presidential election. Our hope is that they then will return home with new skills that will serve to construct a new, free but responsible professional press in Tunisia.
The six winners of the Google internship are:
Radhouane Somai, a political reporter for the Business News website.
Hajer Ben Arjroudi, an an investigative reporter for the Express FM radio station.
Thameur Mekki contributes to three online webzines, specializing in digital culture.
Zbiss Hanene, the editor of the culture section for Realities magazine.
Hajer Jeridi, the editor-in-chief of the www.gnet.tn news site.
Nacer Talel, a freelance photographer
At Google, we are aware of the need to work with publishers to smooth the transition not only from oppression to freedom, but from analogue to digital distribution. We are sponsoring a series of digital journalism prizes with
Institut de Sciences Politiques
, the
International Press Institute
in Vienna and the
Global Editors Network
in Paris. We also are the proud backer of Reporters Without Borders’ annual
Netizen of the Year
award. In addition, we have come up with a series of products such as
Adsense
to split online ad revenues with publishers.
The collaboration with Le Monde marks a significant step forward in our engagement. We are working hard to support free elections in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East, building a series of new Internet tools that allow politicians to reach voters and voters to have their voice heard by politicians.
A special thanks goes out to Le Monde’s
Sylvie Kauffmann
for this project. Sylvie covered Central Europe for Le Monde when it the communist imposed countries of the Soviet empire freed themselves. Sylvie continued to become the Le Monde’s first female editor-in-chief. She travelled to Tunis and personally interviewed and chose all the candidates. For her, and for Le Monde, strong journalism represents a key building block for free societies.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
A new agreement to bring out-of-print French books back to life
Thursday, August 25, 2011
For some time, Google has been working with publishers to make cultural works more widely discoverable online and to create new sources of revenue for them. Today we announced a new partnership with French publishing group
La Martinière
. We will work together to make La Martinière’s out-of-print, in-copyright works available online, extending their commercial lifespan and preserving important French literary works for future generations. This agreement effectively ends the legal dispute between La Martinière and Google.
Together, Google and La Martinière will produce a list of the publishing group’s out-of-print works. La Martinière will then make these hard-to-find works available for sale online via Google eBooks, under a revenue share deal.
The partnership also looks to the future: La Martinière will let us know which of its out-of-print works it wants scanned - and subsequently made available for sale - when we come across them in our library partners’ collections.
The terms of the agreement may sound familiar: we signed a similar partnership with another French publisher, Hachette Livre,
last year
. We believe this deal represents another important step in our relationship with French publishers - and that moving forward, these kinds of partnerships will be of great value in preserving and promoting French cultural heritage, and are of long term benefit to French authors and readers.
Posted by Philippe Colombet, Strategic Partnerships Development Manager, Google France
Investing in news innovation in Europe
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Journalism is changing fast. And as news businesses experiment with new ways of creating and delivering journalism in the digital age, Google is keen to play its part on the technology side. Over the last year, we’ve been partnering with publishers around the world to
develop
technological
solutions
- including, most recently,
One Pass
- to find new and engaging ways of presenting stories online and to generate greater revenues.
As well as our focus on technological experimentation, we’re also investing at the grassroots level.
Last October
we announced that we would be giving $5m in grants to non-profit organisations working on developing new approaches to journalism. At that time, we allocated around 40% of the total fund to the
Knight Foundation
in the US.
Today, we awarded a
$2.7 million grant
to the International Press Institute, based in Vienna, which will be used to sponsor the
IPI News Innovation Contest
. The contest seeks to find and fund breakthrough ideas that will have a lasting impact on the future of digital news in communities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Grants will be awarded to both non-profit and for-profit organisations working on digital journalism initiatives, including open-source and mobile technology projects created by or for journalists and distributed in the public interest. From today until June 1st,
the IPI will invite proposals
from around the region for projects devoted to online innovation in journalism, new economic models for news and training in digital reporting.
The IPI has a long tradition of working on innovation in journalism, freedom of expression and other important issues. We’re sure they’ll be able to find and advance some great digital journalism projects over the next couple of years - and we encourage anyone with innovative ideas, large or small, to
apply for a grant
from the IPI. In the meantime, we’ll continue to work with the news industry to help develop new projects, products and experiments that make it possible for journalism to thrive online.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, Google EMEA
A simple way for publishers to manage paid access online
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
At
Humboldt University
in Berlin today, Eric Schmidt announced
Google One Pass
, a service that lets publishers set their own prices and terms for their digital content. With Google One Pass, publishers can maintain direct relationships with their customers and give readers access to digital content across websites and mobile apps.
Readers who purchase from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smartphones and websites using a single sign-on with an email and password. And readers don’t have to re-subscribe in order to access their content on new devices.
With One Pass, publishers can customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see what works best for them—offering subscriptions, metered access, ‘freemium’ content or even single articles for sale from their websites or mobile apps. The service also lets publishers give existing print subscribers free (or discounted) access to digital content. We take care of the rest, including payments technology handled via Google Checkout.
Our goal is to provide an open and flexible platform that furthers our commitment to support publishers, journalism and access to quality content. Like
First Click Free
,
Fast Flip
and
Living Stories
, this is another initiative developed to enable publishers to promote and distribute digital content.
German publishers
Axel Springer AG
, Focus Online (
Tomorrow Focus
) and
Stern.de
joined Eric at Humboldt University today as some of our first One Pass partners. Other publishers already signed up include
La Presse
,
Media General
, Bonnier’s
Popular Science
,
Prisa
and
Rust Communications
.
Google One Pass is currently available for publishers in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US. We hope to develop further partnerships with publishers in coming months and look forward to extending One Pass to other countries too. For more information, please take a look at the
One Pass website
.
Posted by Lee Shirani, director, business product management, Google Commerce
Partnering to put out-of-print French works back in circulation
Thursday, November 18, 2010
It’s astonishing, but true: approximately 75% of the world’s books are in-copyright, but out-of-print. That can make things pretty difficult for people who want to find those books and read and enjoy them. Not to mention for the authors and publishers who created them and want to sell them and see them accessed and valued.
Yesterday morning in Paris, Google and
Hachette Livre
, one of France’s largest publishers, signed a Memorandum of Understanding that both companies believe will breathe new life into Hachette’s catalogue of dormant and commercially unavailable books. Within six months, we aim to sign a more detailed agreement which we believe will benefit French authors, publishers, booksellers, researchers, academics and the reading public - and will increase public access to cultural works.
Under the terms of the MoU, Hachette will determine which of its out-of-print works it wants scanned; these books will then be scanned by Google and made searchable via Google Books. Hachette will decide which books are to be made available for purchase via Google Editions. Hachette and Google will also be able to make these books available for other services.
Finally, French booksellers will be able to sell Hachette’s out-of-print works electronically and Hachette intends to make digital copies of scanned works available to public institutions such as the Bibliotheque Nationale de France - thus contributing to the growing corpus of French culture available online.
This might just be a first step, but it’s an important one to us, and to Hachette. We’re keen to work with the creative industries to find new business models and new solutions for increasing the value of public access to cultural works. We hope to sign similar MOUs with other publishers throughout France.
Posted by Philippe Colombet, Strategic Partnerships Development Manager, France
Friday 19/11/2010, updated para 3 to better reflect the MoU
A digital renaissance: partnering with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The
Renaissance
, Europe's period of cultural, political and scientific rebirth, began in Florence around 600 years ago. At Google we're interested in a (small “r”) renaissance of a different kind — a digital one. Since the launch of Google Books, we’ve been working with libraries and publishers around the globe to bring more of the world's books to more readers around the globe. Any school child should be able to access the works of Petrarch, Dante or Vico (or, if they're so inclined, Machiavelli). In the case of these more famous authors, this is already largely possible, but what about the work of
Guglielmo il Giuggiola
or
Coluccio Salutati
? We want all of the great literature and writings of Italy to be accessible to the general public.
Today we’re announcing an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage that will push this vision forward. Working with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome, we’ll digitize up to a million out-of-copyright works. The libraries will select the works to be digitized from their collections, which include a wealth of rare historical books, including scientific works, literature from the period of the founding of Italy and the works of Italy's most famous poets and writers. It marks the first time we’ve ever joined forces with Italian libraries, and the first time we've worked with a ministry of culture.
Around Europe and the rest of the world, we are effectively witnessing a digital renaissance, with an increasing number of organizations running ambitious and promising book digitization projects. We're not the only ones who have seen the need to bring the world's books into digital form. Digitization of books is a tremendous undertaking, requiring the joint effort of a great number of public and private stakeholders. For this reason, we’re supportive of many other efforts at digitization, such as the European Commission's
Europeana
. We want to see these books have the broadest reach possible — the books we scan are available for inclusion in Europeana, of which the Florence Library is a contributing member, and other digital libraries. The more of the world's historical, cultural treasures we can bring online, the more we can unlock our shared heritage.
We believe today’s announcement is an important step, and we look forward to working with more libraries and other partners. We envision a future in which people will be able to search and access the world's books anywhere, anytime. After all,
Antonio Beccadelli
and
Anastasius Germonius
— like Shakespeare and Cervantes — are part of our human cultural history.
Posted by Gino Mattiuzzo, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Italy
Engaging with European news publishers
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Three months ago when we
launched
Fast Flip
, a new service in Google Labs designed to improve the way people read articles online, our launch partners were almost all American. Today, we're excited to announce that UK newspapers are joining the experiment, with three national titles: the Telegraph, the Independent and the Daily Express.
Along with these UK outlets, more than 50 new publications are joining the experiment today, bringing the total number of participating publishers to about 90. We have received good feedback from users and publishers, and we're pleased that more publishers are joining innovative services such as Fast Flip.
Fast Flip is just one of the ways we work with publishers to help them find ways to boost traffic to their websites, better engage users and make more money. As recently as last week we
announced
Living Stories
with the Washington Post and the New York Times, as another Labs product which features new ways to interact with news and the quality of reporting. As with Fast Flip, we're excited to learn from this experiment and hope to eventually make these tools available to any publisher that wants to use them.
But that's not all. In the past few weeks, we also announced improvements to
First Click Free
, a simple way for publishers that charge for their content to make it discoverable through Google News and Google Search. And we launched a Google News specific
crawler
, making it even easier for news publishers to control whether their content is included in Google News and Google Search.
We continue to engage with publishers on a regular basis, to find out first-hand how we can work together to tackle some of the challenges of the online world from a technological perspective. We look forward to continue exploring new ways to display news and help publishers make more money from their content.
For more information about Google News, visit
news.google.com
For more information about Google News launches, visit or subscribe to: http://
googlenewsblog.blogspot.com
/
Posted by Clara Armand-Delille, Communications and Public Affairs Manager
Working with newspapers
Friday, December 4, 2009
When hundreds of newspaper publishers gathered this week in India for the
World Association of Newspapers'
annual Congress, they spent much of their time debating the impact of the Internet on their business. We know the transition to digital news has been wrenching. But we also believe we are here to help publishers attract an ever larger audience of online readers, engage more and more readers, and find new ways of helping them make money, both through ads and paid for content.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Legal Counsel David Drummond traveled to India and gave a
speech
as part of a debate titled "What do we do about Google?" He prefaced his remarks by imploring the assembled newspaper publishers, "don't shoot, I come in peace." The Internet, with or without Google, offers newspapers new challenges. "If Google didn’t exist, would the industry be any better off than it is today?," he asked, before pausing "Don’t answer that just yet!" In a related effort to reach out to the news industry, our CEO Eric Schmidt published an
op-ed
in the Wall Street Journal.
For regular readers of this blog, you will have seen we announced two features to give publishers more control over their content and how it's displayed online. First, we announced improvements to our
First Click Free feature
, which puts publishers in greater control of their content, and how much of it they wish to let users consult for free. Secondly, we announced a
new crawler
specifically for Google News. It gives publishers the ability to give Google News one set of instructions on whether to crawl their content and another set to Google Search.
This is not the end of the story, just the beginning. We look forward to working with publishers in coming months and years to help insure the survival of a vigorous news industry.
Posted by Peter Barron,
Director of Communications and Public Affairs - Northern Europe
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