Google's Plan To Save the News Through Reinvention 83
eldavojohn writes "It's no secret that Google doesn't create content, but rather helps people find it. And Google News is no different. So what does the company plan to do about complaints from the news industry that profits are dropping drastically? In a lengthy and comprehensive article, The Atlantic diagnoses the problem and looks at Google's plan to 'save' the symbiotic organism it is attached to, which older generations have traditionally branded 'the news.' The answer, of course, hinges on moving news from dead tree print to the information age via Google's many projects: Living Stories, Fast Flip, and YouTube Direct. But Google is also exploring the more traditional options of displaying ads and designing a paywall so users can easily migrate back to subscriptions like the newspapers of yore. You may also recall that last week the Internet was abuzz with the idiocy of suggestions the FTC had aggregated from inside the industry. Ars brings mention of other proposed plans, both good and bad, from the FTC's report on ideas that newspaper companies are kicking around."
Google Shouldn't (Score:5, Insightful)
That will piss off these fuckers.
Adwords it (Score:4, Insightful)
Every article gets an Adword block, Google takes a smaller cut than usual, and the newspaper gets paid.
Shortly after that, the better independent writers will probably start publishing to Google directly.
Re:Google Shouldn't (Score:2, Insightful)
I like it. Old Murdoch will have to shit or get off the pot, then justify his actions to investors.
Put up a paywall, or don't put up a paywall. Personally, I don't like Murdoch's kind of "news", and I don't read it for free - I sure as hell won't pay to read it.
As has already been mentioned, the real "news" is being reported via the internet in many different ways already. If some old rich fools can't figure out how to make money off of what they have always done, and can't figure out a new way of doing it, then we are not obligated to KEEP THEM RICH!!
When they get hungry, they can join the illegal aliens in ditch digging for their food.
Oh, boo hoo, some prick born with a silver spoon up his ass might actually do some WORK? Oh, what is this world coming to?
Intelligent life? (Score:4, Insightful)
Turn college students into journalists. "If the nation’s 200,000 journalism and mass communications students spent 10 percent of their time doing actual journalism," said one participant, "that would more than make up for all the traditional media jobs that have been lost in the past 10 years."
You unintentionally stumbled upon a nice parallel there. Like the communications major looking for a nice engineer to marry, print media is out trolling for a sugar daddy.
Re:Newspapers need to team up with someone else... (Score:3, Insightful)
So far I am completely unimpressed with Google's attempts at engaging the modern user. I use a lot of Google's products but none of them are really "engaging". Yeah, they're trying different engagement tactics such as copycatting the "like" feature and adding social commenting to Google Reader. They've tried and failed to engage people with Wave and Buzz. They have some input on Google News from "pros". Otherwise, it's just your typical aggregator. Not impressed.
I don't think that most of Google's current products are _supposed_ to be engaging. Seems to me that they're supposed to be transparent. Google doesn't make content, they make content discovery and distribution. Ideally you wouldn't see their apps at all, you would only see the content.
The problems is that the... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Newspapers need to team up with someone else... (Score:3, Insightful)
"So far I am completely unimpressed with Google's attempts at engaging the modern user. I use a lot of Google's products but..."
That's all 'Engaging' the user is about though. If you're using their products instead of their competitors, then they've done enough. I don't think Google is naive enough to think they can impress every single person with every single service they offer - with us 'old hands' especially, we've probably seen features elsewhere they haven't considered yet. That said, with the range they've got now they can easily get a lot of people roped into using two or three of their services - they're pretty consistent, and often better than anything 'Joe Bloggs' has seen.
We're not really their core market, but the fringe. "The whole getting money out of the user thing is all" any business cares about, so it's natural that Google will go for the easy money before working on attracting the fringe users. Seems to work for them. :)
Re:It would take Superman... (Score:3, Insightful)
He's [wikipedia.org] dead, [wikipedia.org] Jim. But guys like Murdoch are the new Lex Luthor; the newspaper publishers are killing their own businesses and blaming the internet.
When you buy a dead-tree paper, you're paying for the cost of printing; or at least you used to. The rest is paid by advertisers, and some papers even give printed versions away for free. But the real reason newspapers are dying is because publishers are charging too damned much for them! When I was a kid, the St Louis Post Dispatch, a big city reputable paper, cost a dime. With the advances in printing technology you'd think it would'nt have gone up at much or even at all, but it's a buck now.
And a world-wide readership should bring in MORE ad money than a local readership. "Ad blockers" they scream? Well, people don't block ads because they hate advertising, they block ads because they hate intrusive advertising.
Someone with more brains and less greed could certainly make money in the newspaper business. They're killing themselves with their own greed.
Decentralization of news (Score:2, Insightful)
The middle man age is ending, mainly due to the Internet, and the leeches are screaming as we burn them off their food source. This applies to the music industry and probably to TV and Hollywood next as independent YouTube production is beginning to flourish. Long live the Internet, the all-purpose tool of the people and the bane of the oppressor. Don't ever let them take it from us.
Want me to read the news? Even subscribe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then let me tell you why the news industry lost me. It wasn't paywalls. It wasn't paper or plastic or bits.
It was:
I would honestly rather read some resourceful person's blog where they have gone to the trouble to find interesting, reasonable resolution images; linked to supporting information for their factual claims; and don't try to put in crazy "alternative" ideas like the idiocy of creationism, scientifically unsubstantiated claims of vaccine/autism, cellphone/cancer, angels, auras, and so on down the line of malarkey, and where I may comment upon the subject matter, provoking others to respond, which in turn often digs up more information, etc.
To watch Fox News is to watch the poster child for the failure of an entire industry. To watch CNN is to listen to Kindergarten level expositions on celebrity hi-jinks when wars are raging. The web sites these companies have created are true lowest-common-denominator designs that are painful to anyone who can think their way out of a paper bag. If you're going to aim your content at only half the country, maybe you should be aiming at the half that can think. Or is that too frightening?
And the news industry wonders why its income has dropped. Sheesh.
PS: Spell check and grammar check too... maybe an intern could do that while you FACT CHECK and EDIT OUT YOUR OPINION!
Re:How about (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not necessarily the government, but the Washington press corps is a cliquish bunch. Surprisingly, The New York Times Magazine ran an article awhile back about how a certain influential reporter is able to "shape" much of the day's news since he he's hyper-connected to the politicians, business people, journalists, and other influential people. The news media compete to some extent, but they're all just competing to serve gruel from the same bucket. Really, it's a lack of journalistic imagination on their part: They want to be the first to break what those "in the know" consider to be "the" story of the day. Influential people who want to break a story shop it with influential people like this manic journalist along with the blogs the editors and producers read. Our news seems so homogeneous because it's produced by such a homogeneous group responding to the social and economic pressures placed upon it. There's just not much willingness to take the time and risk of the kind of investigative journalism that may also upset the status quo when it's just so much easier to report on scandals and celebrity gossip that seem to get the largest audience anyway.