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Where Google News is going, I don't know. But I wouldn't see this as a strategic shift for all of Google, just that GN is evolving.
FWIW: I started depreciating AP news in Ventura more than three years ago. In Bakersfield, I canceled the AP contract. It's been obvious for some time that AP produced commodity content. This move devalues it even further, but I'm not sure AP has much choice.
The biggest concern for newspapers will be what happens to local-story rewrites in GN -- will the AP version trump the original local version? That is where the damage to referral traffic from GN could hit hard. But I suspect AP and Google have a plan for this. And that isn't just a guess.
The AP pickup/rewrite has always been a major problem re: Google News - and this could definitely make it worse.
That being said - if AP/Google has a plan to make this work - how about letting us know about it? At this point the GN/AP deal looks like a bad one for newspapers and reinforces the impression AP is looking out for itself not the members. I would be happy to stand corrected if there is a plan that will make this somehow work for us...
See my post "Google deal uncovers truth that AP is now a competitor to newspapers, and papers are suckers for being members of it"
at The Future of News.
(Steve Boriss)
AP doesn't sell Google its "state wire" with local news that originates from our papers, so that traffic isn't affected. Neither is organic search. Like Damon, I believe there will be a techno-fix for questions about what content is genuinely AP and what is genuinely AP content and what is pickup/rewrite.
What changes is that Google News readers won't click on one of the multiple newspaper sources previously listed by Google News for basic AP content. That's better for readers, isn't a big traffic source for us, and could even clear the way for better display and availability of the genuinely unique material newspaper websites feature.
Anybody whose business plan revolves around drive-by traffic from incidental links to generic AP stories is already in deeper trouble than this issue suggests.
You say, wire services were created to not "have each newspaper spend its own resources to cover the same national and international stories," but "just pool all of the newspapers’ resources and do it once."
Did this really every happen?
Sure my local city newspaper would rely on the AP/wire story, but the big city papers have until recently continued to send 3-5 reporters to "cover" a story.
The city editor, the opinions guy, the columnist, oh and the online guy/gal.
Sure people get "news" other ways now, but newspapers still need to stop conducting 21st century business using a 20th or (or even 19th) century business model. It doesn't take four people to cover a mayor who stinks, a cop who is corrupt or the national champion sports team.
Sending traffic to news sites running Google AdSense is risky, it is much better to make sure traffic stays on GOOG pages. After all, Google AdSense can be turned off or swapped for another network in a Silicon Valley minute.
There will be an increasing rift between news organisations and Google, IMHO. It is inevitable because both organizations are going after the same sources of money.