More than 500 publishers are now represented at Google News Showcase. 15 million clicks came from the news service on the pages of the media.
More than 500 publishers worldwide have now reached an agreement with Google News Showcase. The separate news area is intended to create a closer bond between readers and the media. After the first few months, Google has announced new partners and initial evaluations.
In Germany, 30 partners have so far been involved in the program. The Morgenpost , the Olympia-Verlag, SWMH with, among others, the Süddeutsche Zeitung , TAG24, the taz and Heise Medien are added. It will take a while until the first contributions from heise online can be found in the news area. All content in News Showcase is curated by the media themselves. If a reader clicks on a post shared there, the link leads directly to the company’s website.
More partners, expanded functions
According to Google’s blog post , a total of 15 million clicks have now been directed to the participating companies. 300 partners produced more than 7000 info panels per week. So far, the panels can be seen in Google News and via Discover. 70 percent of daily users should see at least one showcase info panel. Users can view the overview, but also follow individual media. This has been done by more than 200,000 people so far, which Google rates as a “strong result” because “each of these interactions can be the basis for a relationship between the medium and a new reader”.
If you are logged in with your Google account, you can also read selected content for the first few participants that is actually behind a paywall. Google pays the publishers fees for this. Readers can be convinced of the news value and, if necessary, take out a digital subscription.
News Showcase as a licensing model
Google only announced News Showcase last autumn, with Germany and Brazil kicking off the bill. A billion US dollars should be set aside to pay for licenses . Shortly thereafter, the availability was expanded to include paid content . News Showcase has now started in numerous countries. Only recently this program was agreed in Australia, thereby avoiding a kind of replacement for previously threatened license payments due to a new media law. In France, too, News Showcase quasi answers the question of copyright payments from Google .
Regardless of this, there are lawsuits against Google, which deal with the question of the distortion of competition caused by the company’s market power – also with regard to the use of content and the advertising revenue generated by it.
