Google has announced an initial USD 1 billion in payments to news publishers to produce content for Google News. The new scheme will start in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the UK and Australia with leading publications such as Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, Folha de S.Paulo, Band and Infobae. Google said it plans to expand the News Showcase to other countries soon, including India, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The new product is designed to target mobile users, initially on Android devices and later on iOS. News Showcase is made up of story panels where participating publishers can package their stories, giving them more options for how they appear within Google’s news products. Google said this will support "deeper storytelling" and more context through features like timelines, bullets and related articles. Other components like video, audio and daily briefings will come next.
The company did not provide details on how publishers would be paid for the content. This is the latest in series of efforts by Google to support news media, amid criticism its search engine has siphoned away ad revenues from publishers and recycled their content without compensation. Google started earlier this year a licensing programme to compensate publishers, after legislation to that effect was enforced in Europe, and the company has also provided millions in grants to train journalists and support news publications.
