Half of Google News Users Browse But Don't Click 237
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the International Business Times: "Nearly half of the users of Google News skim the headlines at the news aggregator site without clicking through to the publisher, according to new research. ... Outsell analyst Ken Doctor said in a statement that 'among the aggregators, Google's effect on the newspaper industry is particularly striking.' 'Though Google is driving some traffic to newspapers, it's also taking a significant share away," Doctor said. 'A full 44 percent of visitors to Google News scan headlines without accessing newspapers' individual sites.' ... With a number of US newspaper owners considering charging online, Outlook found that only 10 percent of those surveyed would be willing to pay for a print newspaper subscription to gain online access."
Outsell Not Outlook (Score:4, Informative)
Outlook found that only 10 percent of those surveyed would be willing to pay for a print newspaper subscription to gain online access.
The article says the same thing but what they probably messed up is that it's Outsell not Outlook:
With a number of US newspaper owners considering charging online, Outlook found that only 10 percent of those surveyed would be willing to pay for a print newspaper subscription to gain online access.
For its annual News Users' survey, Outsell asked 2,787 US news consumers in July about their online and offline news preferences. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus three percent.
Outsell found that 57 percent of news users looking for "news right now" go to digital sources, up from 33 percent a few years ago.
I'm guessing that was a spell checking/slip up. Not to be blamed on the submitter or slashdot editors but instead the IB Times.
It's not just a substitute for news... (Score:2, Informative)
I can't speak for everyone else who uses Google News, but a lot of the time that I go there it's because I'm looking for a particular story. A lot of the time I can't find it or it's probably too recent for the story to make its way through the cycle to end up referenced at Google. If that's the case, I don't click on anything, and I'll come back later or find the article through some other means.
Just because someone doesn't click through it doesn't mean Google is stealing page views from the original news source.