A flurry of news industry friendly initiatives from Google has probably not made them any more popular. Google is clearly trying to woo media owners. Fast Flip, which simulates the experience of flicking through a newspaper, and sharing revenue from ads placed alongside articles won’t solve much, if anything, but the thought counts.
The question is why is Google making such a big effort? And, more importantly, why are media owners not doing more to help themselves? By comparison media owners’ efforts are lame. The best, and it’s really not very inspired, response so far has been The Sunday Times’ decision to charge for access to articles. Why no initiatives aimed at improving the users’ experience? Strange that Google alone should be left to think of this.
PaidContent UK published yesterday a poll of newspapers readers on their attitude to paying for news online: only 5% said they would stick with the site if charges were introduced and 74% said they would look elsewhere. No doubt newspapers have done their own research and, regardless of results like these, will press ahead with their plans to charge. It’s just not very inventive. And strange that the only company making any obvious effort to innovate is the one that stands accused of wrecking the news industry.
There is also the relaunch of Google’s Ad Exchange (http://www.speedcommunications.com/blogs/speed/2009/09/18/google-vs-the-publishing-industry/). Taken together a lot more inventive than the publishing industry has been to date