Traditional Journalism is old news, says Google
Google predicted a bleak future for some of the world’s biggest newspapers and publications at the US Senate conference earlier this month.
The search engine giant demonstrated the power the Internet has when it comes to news provision and consumption, with little growth for publications who fail to comply with the growing digital trends.
In March this year, the search engine attracted some less than desirable attention from big media names claiming Google ranked news stories depending on factors not traditionally associated with the press.
This month has seen more indications that Google has become more of a publisher in its own right, something which will cause major problems for large corporate publishers struggling in the current economic climate.
And Google’s vice president of products, Melissa Mayer, had no words of comfort for journalists and publishers worldwide, saying that publishers needed to move with the times to stay ahead of the game.
Mayer indicated that while Google respected the wishes of content producers, there were plenty of things producers can do to help themselves, for example by fitting into a specific model similar to that of Wikipedia’s.
She said, “Consider instead how the authoritativeness of news articles might grow if an evolving story was published under a permanent, single URL as a living, changing, updating entity.
“We see this practice today in Wikipedia’s entries and in the topic pages at NYTimes.com. The result is a single authoritative page with a consistant reference point that gains clout and following of users overtime.”
Mayer then went on to discuss the potential scope for mash ups, which would result in a far more interactive news model than a traditional journalist to reader, via a trusted media system we all know and in time, love.
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