Google Says Its News Showcase Will Add Free Access To Paywalled Stories

Google News Showcase visitors will soon be able to read select paywalled articles at no extra charge. TechCrunch reports: Google says it will be paying participating publishers to provide "limited access to paywalled content for News Showcase users." Those users will, however, still need to register directly with the publishers, which Google says will give them a way to build a relationship. The main News Showcase format is essentially story panel, and Google says it's introducing a new panel allowing publishers to curate a daily selection of their most important stories. Those panels will be shown to users who follow those publishers.

Google is also bringing the News Showcase to new devices and channels. It started out on Google News on Android and is now available on iOS as well, with plans to expand to the news.google.com website and Discover soon. And it says it has doubled the number of partners since the launch in October -- the list of nearly 400 publishers participating in the program includes new names like Le Monde, Courrier International, L'Obs, Le Figaro, Liberation and L'Express in France, plus Pagina12, La Gaceta and El Dia in Argentina.

My bet?

[Random361]

This service will be killed by Google in about a month.

Re:

[rtb61]

Guess why though. I tried Google news feed for a very, very short while, they fed me an top news story, really headline stuff, some pseudo celebrity slut had created a new makeup line, such important news. I took me some time to clear and shutdown all Google feeds, killing them on the phone, permanently. Ohh yeah, I want a Google news feed, FUCK OFF. It will be a Google advertising as news feed and make no mistake, the number one source of propaganda as news.

They might keep it, failure to use Google News F

Re:

[Kisai]

Place your bets, place your bets. Google has already blown up several useful tools like google finance and google reader that had similar types of data.

I put this at 24 months max.

Google...

[jjaa]

If you so desperately need to warm up your image, just let the workers have their unions, mkay?

The newsfeed rent is too damn high

[layabout]

If I subscribed everything I read, I'll be spending over $2500 a year. Just not happening.

Re:

[John.Banister]

I agree. They really need the prepaid model. If sites can keep track of how many of the allotted free stories I read per month, surely they can keep track of how many I read of the stories for which I have prepaid. I'd prefer to pre-pay for say 35 stories and see how long that lasts me. I don't want to buy unlimited access, because life limits my access regardless of the opinions of the publisher. I'd rather just pay for what I consume, and if I end up spending enough to merit a subscription, then we can c

Buy a block of 35 stories on each site you visit

[tepples]

Buy a block of 35 stories on each site you visit, and after the 30 cent transaction fee that credit card companies charge, you're back up to the $2500 a year just from the variety of distinct commercial websites that people find through search over the course of a year.

Some might suggest routing these micropayments through a facilitator, like Adult Check used to be in the late 1990s. Trouble with this is that a facilitator can track your browsing on participating publishers' sites and use your page view his

Re:

[John.Banister]

I was only thinking 35 from the sites I like and visit more regularly. From those I only visit occasionally, more like 5.

Re:

[tepples]

Except sites wouldn't sell blocks of 5. They'd sell only larger blocks in order to reduce the share of revenue that goes to the payment processor. It's the same as convenience stores refusing credit cards for purchases under $5 or $10 or whatever.

Re:

[sg_oneill]

This really is the nut of the problem.

The ad supported model of news has to die. Like, buried next to a railway with a stake through its heart so it cant come back from the dead.

But the paywall model is actually worse.Theres just too many news sources, and the problem is this ends up forcing people into low quality propaganda type news sources, and if the last 4 years has taught us anything its that bogus news is a straight up cancer on the body politic. To counter that someone would need to potentially ha

I don't understand

[AndyKron]

If you still have to register what is Google providing?

Really?

[nospam007]

So we don't have to delete the cookie to read on or use the reader-mode and refresh?