LJNDawson.com, Consulting to the Book Publishing Industry
Start With XML

And now it's time for newspapers

Google is now vacuuming up digital newspaper archives, and newspaper publishers are joining the ranks of book publishers - worrying that their business model is about to change as a result.

(Well, the newspaper business model HAS to change anyway, or there won't be any more newspapers.)

The main concern seems to be that if Google is posting contextual ads, that ad revenue will be going to Google and not the newspaper publisher whose content is generating the context for those ads:

But many newspaper publishers view search engines like Google as threats to their own business. Many of them also see their archives as a potential source of revenue, and it is not clear whether they will willingly hand them over to Google.


“The concern is that Google, in making all of the past newspaper content available, can greatly commoditize that content, just like news portals have commoditized current news content,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst with Outsell, a research company.


Google really is taking an extreme library model - using ad dollars instead of tax dollars to subsidize making content available "for free" - and this article notes that they're working with ProQuest in this latest initiative. Of course publishers - of newspapers, magazines and books - are threatened. Find me a publisher who is NOT made uncomfortable with library models.
Bookmark this post: Add this post to del.icio.us Digg it! Add this post to Furl StumbleUpon it! Add this post to Technorati Add this post to Google Bookmarks Add this post to Windows Live Add this post to Netscape Add this post to BlinkList Add this post to Newsvine Add this post to ma.gnolia Add this post to Tailrank
Posted by Laura Dawson , September 9, 08, 9:32 AM , comments(0) , permalink , Email this post
FRONT PAGE
Site design: thesuperheavy.com   Site engineering: Hamidof.com   Powered by: PHPBlogManager.com