Google News Showcase, Google’s “new product experience & licensing program for news”, will begin rolling out with local, national & independent publishers in the UK, announced Google.
Under its licensing agreements with publishers, Google has also launched the ability for readers to access select paywall Content. This will give readers the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s Content than they would otherwise have access to, while enabling publishers to encourage readers to become a subscriber.
Google News Showcase in UK has signed partnerships with over 120 publishers such as Archant, DC Thomson, Evening Standard, The Financial Times, Iliffe Media, The Independent, Midland News Association, New Statesman, Reuters, to name a few.
“We welcome this initiative and its potential to give public interest journalism a more visible platform in Google,” said David Higgerson, Chief Audience Officer of Reach, the largest commercial publisher in the UK, with many regional and national brands on the Google blog post. “For us, public interest journalism thrives when it is not just about recording events but is of genuine interest to the public and is able to attract an audience that means it is sustainable. Google’s work here will help give readers a new way to discover news which is important to them, which they may not otherwise have discovered.”
Globally, there are now more than 450 news publications in Google News Showcase in over a dozen countries including Australia, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, UK & Argentina with discussions underway in a number of other countries.
With News Showcase panels, editors at news organizations can help explain complicated news topics & bring context to readers looking to understand more.
News Showcase Content from partner publishers will automatically start to appear in panels in Google News & Discover, & direct readers to the full article on the publisher’s Site, said Google. People will see panels from publishers they follow in their personalized feeds & they might also see panels from publishers they’re less familiar with, presented as suggestions in the Google News “For You” feed & inside “Newsstand,” the discovery area of Google News.
Image credit: The Keyword
