The war between Google and the traditional media has had several chapters. Tensions, law-making lobbies (the AEDE canon is one of the best examples), and industry movements have been involved in a complicated relationship in recent years. In it, the media have been taking investments from Google, via journalism programs.
Google has never paid a ‘fee’ to the media for its content, but it has created actions to support innovation in media that have served to bring peace. And now, Google is going to start paying the media directly. He will do it, with a millionaire figure, for the news content.
Google has just confirmed that it will spend $ 1 billion over the next three years to license media content for a new news service. Google News Showcase is not Google News, but a new service that will show panels with stories.
How the service will work
The news will be selected by the media in question, which will also choose the photos to be included. These stories will not exactly be full news, but rather a summary or ‘teaser’ of sorts. The Internet user will have to click on them to see them in full and, when they do, they will be forwarded to the website of the medium in question.
The service will be integrated into Google News, will include audio and video clips in the future, and will become available at some point in the future directly in the search results of the main search engine. For now, yes, it will only reach limited markets.
The program will start in Germany and Brazil, where they have signed agreements with some 200 media. As The Wall Street Journal has learned , Google is already negotiating with media officials in other countries to launch it in other markets.
How much will the media be paid?
How will the payment be made? As the area manager explained to the Journal , the media will receive a payment based, in part, on the amount of news they work for the service. What else will be taken into account? It is not known.
Nor how long will each medium involved take a year. What sources close to the economy have confirmed to the economic environment is that the price will not be affected by traffic (possibly, this suggests, to prevent the content from enhancing the clickbait).
Google is not the only company that has launched news services that it pays the media for. Facebook pays broadcasters for a fairly similar service, and Apple has a pay-for-news service, which has now been integrated into its flat rate for services.
Of course, as much as this partially implies a concession to the claims of the media (who wanted compensation for the traffic they generate for digital players with their links and content), it does not necessarily imply breaking the status quo of the market. Links and content are one more service of one of the giants of the network, on which the media will continue to depend for traffic.
