I can see this in the UK at the moment. The actual Google-hosted pages (at ap.google.com/article/) are kinda strange - they feel like a bit of a dead-end. True, there are links to other AP sites (and to the Google News results) but it certainly provides a different experience from a 'real' news website.

Definitely feels like a win for Google as opposed to news websites.

It's here in the USA as well. Go to Google News and look at the sources under the news items and find "Associated Press." If you click on that you'll find a clean news page with the AP logo. If you are signed in as a user, you'll see "related links" on the left to other news sources on the same topic, if not the same news event.

Oh, and let me be the first to note: No Google ads. Ha. (Contextual ads don't work on the news. This proves it!)

[edited by: tedster at 5:15 am (utc) on Oct. 5, 2007]

[edited by: goodroi at 12:19 pm (utc) on Oct. 5, 2007]
[edit reason] removed broken link [/edit]

I'm glad about this because what you generally get for AP stories is a dozen or more sources out fast who differ only in how much of the original story they chopped off the end. At least like this we should get the full story.

(Contextual ads don't work on the news. This proves it!)

That's news to many of us...

Hmm, I have two site as sources in G News.

I would imagine if Google are now becoming a publisher of news that it will mean less traffic to other sites, especially those using the same agencies, which most do for breaking news. PLus if they weight their own agency stories higher than everyone else...

I note one newspaper says that people go to their original local stories from G News, I don't buy that. Google News does not list very local stories generally. They might gt traffic to those from bigger stories linked on G news but not direct.

I am sure glad we write nearly all our own entertainment news. It is trickier with breaking international news though bar analysis etc, in fact this will encourage rewrites of agency stories ad nauseum. Even local papers use agencies for lcoal coerage of big events, especially as money moves out of print and online circulation figures do not generate same income print ones do.

Although duplicate stories are a pain they do result in people them finding other stories on said publications. Just the current system spreads it about. It will be interesting to see how many publishers start cancelling contracts or demanding reducitons in fees from agencies supplying Google, I know I would as worth less now.

I suppose smart - build up traffic by being an aggregator (many aggregated sites promote G News) then try and supplant those you aggregate buy becoming a publisher yourself. Bit like some agencies who have the cheek to publish and try and sell news to other sites - I try and avoid those agencies. Cake and eat it?

Still if they do start to publish more and more themselves and rate those stories high in the order (news knife etc track this sort of thing) then someone else will have an opening for a new clutter-free non-publishing aggregator. A resourceful person might build a nice simple aggregator and contact all the Google News source sites ask them to join and initially promote, promise no publishing...I might buy that idea. Especially if G News traffic is set to fall...circa 20% of our traffic and I imagine many other online newspapers.

But they shoudl make up their mind if Google News to become another online newspaper as opposed to an aggregator. I don't think publishers will buy it both ways.

As for contextual ads, our world news section has an ecpm higher than about 50% of our other secttions and similar ctr...no real problems with context.

Interesting times in online news for sure.

[edited by: FattyB at 10:49 am (utc) on Sep. 1, 2007]

Wow didn't CNN just announce the other day they were stopping AP content?

I wonder if that's a coincidence?

Oh sorry, I'm wrong. CNN is no longer carrying Reuters. Similar but different.
[reuters.com...]

[edited by: amznVibe at 12:23 pm (utc) on Sep. 1, 2007]

I note one newspaper says that people go to their original local stories from G News, I don't buy that. Google News does not list very local stories generally.

i take that to mean that people use news.google.com as their search engine for local news which seems quite logical since many people use google to search for everything else.
i just tried it with a current local news item and got exactly 4 hits:
- a corporate press release on a financial news publishing site
- the home town am station web site
- the 2 "local papers" web sites
nothing in the "nearest big city paper" or national news outlets.

pretty much what i expected...

Perhaps I should have said Google News does not list smllaer local stories on their main pages. Clearly you can still access them by searching if that local paper is a source, but if only two local papers then I imagine people looking for small local stories would go direct...that is what I meant.

This will have an impact on traffic to certain sites though in a big way. Looking this morning I see in World news that 9 of the 20 top headlines are Google hosted. A headline for a few hours in US version is worth maybe 5-20K unique on a weekday afternoon. If you were getting 4 of those a day from you agency stories then that could easily run into a million users over a month.

Personally we will benefit from this short-term as don't use any of the 4 agencies mentioned so our stories will no doubt front-page more often. Long-term I am not sure, google are said to soon include comments and other features news sites do. So could end up as just another competitor for readership.

[edited by: FattyB at 1:30 pm (utc) on Sep. 1, 2007]

I'm seeing afp.google.com on some news articles. AFP is Agence France-Presse, a global news agency

According to Reuters, "Google is playing host to articles from four news agencies, including The Associated Press, the company said Friday, setting the stage for it to generate advertising revenue from Google News."

So, we will see.

The reports here that contextual ads are working on some news pages is interesting to me. My experience is on local news in small to medium-sized markets.

brilliant move. They probably pay peanuts for the right to do so and in turn get to serve ads millions of times a day.

It looks like Google wants top spot back from Yahoo! I'm tempted to say that Google will now be duplicating content already being provided by Yahoo! since they will distribute AP material too... but I won't. I'm curious to see if Google will add extra value somehow or if Google will simply copy what Yahoo has been doing for ages.

I'm sorry, my hearts not with Google. I'm already jaded by other tactics Google has used, including forcing all webmasters to assimilate their sites into "Google determined relevancy". I like funny pepsi commercials with my superbowl games even if pepsi isn't relevant to footbal ya know? All eyes are watching you big G, prove us doubters wrong please.

The real problem with this is that any site who uses those agencies but wants to keep its Google News traffic will just start agency rewrites.

That reduces income to the agency and just creates more crap for readers to wade through. In fact rewrites are worse than duplicates as they will not be updated with corrections as fast as original wire, if at all and more mistakes in rewriting. Plus if you use an agency you can be fairly confident of accuracy and build some original opinion pieces etc off the back of them.

Instead of saying paying $5000 a month to AP for a few feeds, just hire a couple of part-time writers to do their own version based on the various agency reports. Hell you could even syndicate it then and not have a time limit on keeping it online. Problem is agencies are cheap since economy of scale, hiring writers is not so morelikely you take them off above mentioned analysis/opinion etc and get them doing rewrites.

That is what I would do anyway. In fact a few Google News source sites do just that, rewrite AP/etc. You can often copy and paste sentences and get a match. Also many of them do not license photos, just use them...usually can tell when no copyright or credit caption. This is another way agencies could lose out as they often bundle photos with their wires for a price.

So unless Google is paying them a small fortune I cannot see how this is a good things for the agencies. I guess it depends just how much traffic sites impacted actually get from G News.

Still it could be good news for out-of work journalists and I hope a kick in the teeth to the agencies who flaunt their position (if they do see a drop in renewals). Running sites to compete with their own customers, delaying when customers get feeds so they enter aggregators etc first.

[edited by: FattyB at 5:28 pm (utc) on Sep. 3, 2007]