16 Mar Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google Inc., has made it increasingly clear that Google has no desire to destroy the news industry. In fact, it would seem that Google desires the opposite.
In an article published last December, Schmidt outlined what he believes to be a starting point for newspapers and magazines trying to enter the digital space more effectively.
According to his stats, Google generates a billion clicks a month for online news publishers strictly from Google News. In addition to that billion, Google web search and iGoogle homepages send an additional 3 billion visitors.
I don’t really understand why online newspapers are not using this to their advantage. The Google News search will only give viewers a preview of the story. If they want to read the entire story, they must click on a link to THEIR website. What am I missing here?
When we write press releases and distribute them on-line, we choose services that will best index them in Google News searches. Why? Because we know that exposure inside of Google News will greatly help the chances of those press releases reaching the right people.
Apparently the big online news outlets think they can go it alone. Google charges nothing for online newspapers to be indexed. These newspapers receive billions of clicks for free. Google does benefit due to ad displays, but it’s not like the news outlets are being hurt by this.
It seems Google is advancing their technologies everyday. This means they are syndicating daily rituals and habits for their users. They are making daily tasks easier and that includes finding and reading the news. Readers are not just going to search a media site for their news. Why wouldn’t a reader use Google to give them the most accurate, relevant and timely news from thousands of publications? Why would they search just one newspaper? I believe that the news media is not going away but they will have to learn to use Google to their advantage.
This points to why Google searches are important for all of us to use to our advantage.
