Blog One

An article recently published on the New York Times website reports that Google has begun posting advertisements on some of its Google News pages. Now when users attempt a search on Google News, the results pages contain various small text-only ads for products and services related to the keywords in the search. So, for example, a search such as "Washington, D.C." returns advertisements for sightseeing tours and local hotels in addition to news stories related to Washington. What distinguishes Google News from other news websites is that it functions more as a database rather than an actual news source. It has a multitude of news stories, and users are given a variety of sources to choose from where they will get these stories. Up until now, Google has refused to post ads on its news pages. 

It seems that the majority of the criticism for Google's recent decision to post ads has come from representatives of other media outlets, particularly newspaper publishers. Some publishers see Google's decision as an act of competition against an already financially troubled industry. Although Google does license content from some individual news organizations, such as the Associated Press, the majority of its news depends on other news organizations that run and maintain their own sites. If you click on a link to essentially any article published by another news site, whether it be a newspaper or otherwise, you are likely to encounter at least one banner ad for any number of products. Therefore, Google's response to any criticism so far has been that Google News increases user traffic, thus making ad space more valuable for the other websites it links itself to. 

If Google is damaging print news companies with their new ad placements, it seems that it could only be in an oblique way. Rather, the newspaper publishing industry's response is indicative of something that is already fairly apparent: as choices for news sources generally become more varied, newspapers' market shares are continuously decreasing. The ultimate problem that newspaper publishers have is that they are selling a product which no longer has the same demand it once did. 

Whereas most media outlets and newspapers are aggregates of information and news, Google News is an aggregate of sources of information and news across a broad spectrum of topics. Google News's model affords its users a multiplicity of perspectives on various news stories. Besides this, Google news is also continuously updated - making it arguably more current than print newspapers, even if only by a couple hours to a day. Furthermore, a news source like Google News can be accessed at any time. The variety and convenience of Google News offers its audience something print newspapers cannot deliver. As long as these competing news organizations do not evolve to meet the growing demands of its prospective consumers, they will either fold or at least continue to struggle.