Back in 2004 Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, with music by Aaron McLeran, created a video called Epic 2014. The video painted a bleak future for newspapers where Google and Amazon took over the media landscape. This foretelling video was received with skepticism by many in the newspaper industry, but some did see it as a wake up call. It’s interesting to look at that video now some 5+ years later.
Google indeed has changed the media landscape through Google News and the host of other tools and applications they provide in addition to their search. Amazon recently released the Kindle, which isn’t in direct competition with newspapers, but certainly puts another nail in the coffin of print.
Google’s latest foray into journalism comes in the form of “Patch“. Patch is being underwritten by Google’s president of advertising for North America and Latin America Tim Armstrong through his private investment company, Polar Capital Group.
Patch, in a nutshell, is a way to find about, and participate in, what’s going on around you. Google’s plan is to put small teams of journalists around the country to produce hyper-local content. This is not a new idea, Yahoo had a similar newspaper initiative some 6 years ago that failed. But oh how times have changed. Thousands of journalists are out of jobs. Talk about ripe for the picking.
Google was asked why don’t they bail out newspapers, now we know why. This is a serious shift in their business from indexing content to creating content.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know this could be devastating to newspapers. I’m sure this action by Google will spawn numerous lawsuits. I would imagine most newspapers will take measures to prevent their news from appearing on Google News. I also wonder what this will do to their relationship with the Associated Press.
What’s equally surprising is how this venture has remained below the radar screen. Thanks to John Battelle for posting this on his blog. Please check his post out for more information.
« Drupal, and why you should care The paid content debate continues… »