Google plans to save it journalism, to prevent fake news and most importantly to strike the duopoly by letting Facebook go its own way, of course to strengthen the monopoly...
What do you do when one-half of the advertising duopoly is starting to threaten your business?
You beat your opponent in any way, and in this case, you work with news organizations.
Google has announced plans to partner with news organizations to increase their digital revenue and enhance journalism (sic). Google's plan is to "build a more informed world" and "share business interest".
Google started it News Initiative Google (Google News Initiative) to help journalism thrive in today's digital age.
The press release states:
The Google News Initiative is Google's biggest effort to help Journalism thrive in the digital age, with a commitment to make $ 300 million in 3 years.
The Google News Initiative brings together everything Google does in the Journalism industry in a single initiative to support quality freelance journalism, financial sustainability and the development of new technologies that promote innovation, and will focus on three priorities:
- The development and enhancement of quality journalism
- The development of business models for sustainable development
- The strengthening of news groups through technological innovation
Google was transformed from a media enemy to a best friend in no time. Why;
Here are some reasons:
- The company needs to get in front of this impending fake news train and can manage election results before Facebook does it.
- Publishers have been disappointed by Facebook, which has not helped to do anything by appearing any ignorant news publisher to compensate for Google's sovereignty.
- Google doesn't want regulators bashing Sundar Pichai when they can let their CEO go Facebook Mark Zuckerberg to live with his problems (cf Cambridge Analytica and data leakage from 50 million Facebook profiles).
- Consumers want more control over how their data is used, according to Deloitte, something that will soon be added to Facebook's problems.
- The Facebook and Google duopoly seems to be weakening.
This last point is probably the primary one theme which you should consider to better understand Google's initiative to "save" journalism.
According to eMarketer, Facebook and Google will capture 56,8% of digital ad investments in the US in 2018, up from 58,5% in 2017. In 2016, Google and Facebook's share together reached 73%.
Image: ZDNnet
So the Google News Initiative project can make sense. Why; EMarketer reports that Amazon and Snapchat are growing much faster than expected.
Google and Facebook realize that it is difficult to distinguish between real and fake news. Both companies also realize that the users they are beginning to question how they use and share their data.
Everyone is shouting for big upcoming changes from both companies (no one believes that Facebook will be left with folded arms).
Let's see which ones will be….
