Google Funds News Initiative -- WSJ
March 21 2018 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Benjamin Mullin
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (March 21, 2018).
Google unveiled a three-year, $300 million commitment to help
news organizations adapt to the digital age, the search giant's
latest olive branch to a publishing industry that has been critical
of its dominance over information and digital advertising.
In New York on Tuesday, the company announced the launch of the
Google News Initiative, which it says is designed to help news
organizations strengthen quality journalism, develop new business
models and upgrade their technology.
As part of the initiative, Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc.,
detailed several efforts to help publishers drive more subscription
revenue, under the umbrella of a program called Subscribe with
Google.
Google unveiled a new feature that will appear on its search
results pages that will highlight stories from publications to
which a user subscribes. The component won't affect the rankings on
the rest of Google's search results page, according to a company
spokeswoman.
The company says it will help simplify the subscription process
so consumers can easily subscribe to multiple news outlets.
Following through on plans announced in October, readers will be
able to use their Google login credentials as a single sign-on for
their various news subscriptions, helping to prevent users from
constantly hitting paywalls, particularly when switching
devices.
Launch partners include the Financial Times, Gannett, the New
York Times, the Telegraph, the Washington Post and Le Figaro.
Google also said it is in the early stages of testing code that
will help publishers gauge the likelihood a user will subscribe,
based on its data and machine-learning models in its ad-serving
technology DoubleClick. By recognizing potential subscribers,
Google says publishers can then present them with "the right offer
at the right time."
Several months ago, the company ended a policy called "first
click free" that allowed users of its search engine to bypass
paywalls and access news articles free of charge. Publishers that
didn't participate in the program, out of fear it hurt subscription
revenue growth, had previously been punished in search results.
Google is trying to improve relations with the news industry
after the two sides have clashed over tech platforms' grip on the
digital ad industry, user data and news distribution, as well as
what publishers perceive to be tech companies' roles in enabling
the spread of misinformation.
During the event on Tuesday, representatives from publishers
including the Financial Times and Washington Post touted recently
developed tools from Google that have helped them increase the
number of readers who become subscribers.
A tool called "flexible sampling," which allows publishers to
adjust the number of free articles that visitors from Google can
read, has helped the Financial Times encourage subscriptions, said
Gadi Lahav, the news organization's head of product.
Some publishers greeted the news with guarded optimism, saying
it signaled Google was trying to be responsive to the needs of news
organizations.
"We welcome the fact that Google has been listening and is
trying to make meaningful changes," said New York Times Co. Chief
Executive Mark Thompson. "This is a long game, and while these
steps do not, in and of themselves, transform the economics of
journalism, they should be viewed as positive signs."
That doesn't mean Google has allayed all of the concerns
publishers have about the company's dominance over advertising,
said Jason Kint, chief executive of publishing trade group Digital
Content Next.
"Every step in the right direction is a good one," Mr. Kint
said. "They're walking up to the starting line, in my book."
--Lukas I. Alpert contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2018 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
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