Google News ‘upgrades’ to AP Content
i work for yahoo!. and looking at the announcement today that google is distributing news from associated press leaves me with mixed reactions.
i always admired Google News for the stand-up-for-the-little guy approach. it was like a box of chocolates, and you never know when you’d discover a good source of news, especially for international and local stories. adding associated press would pretty much bounce these news sources off of the front page, which is pretty much a disaster if you are using this source to attract new visitors. losing overall page views from GNews was probably not a big deal to begin with, but the ‘discoverability’ that google offers is shot.
and then, it vindicates yahoo!’s approach that blending of content from news agencies with local news is the best approach. add blog content, and the picture would be complete. this move is clearly the handiwork of over-analyzed spreadsheet-driven MBA’s., that probably argued that gain from this move will offset losses (hard and soft) due to pissing off the small news providers.
if i were the little newspaper, i’d be pissed. google built up the 9.6 UV using (for free i must say) my content, and now ditches me in the gutter for the big boys. google is doing in news what yahoo is doing in search: trying to play the others’ game. just do what’s right for your users!
