Really all this is going to achieve is to drive readers away from conventional news sources to less conventional ones. Google doesn't control ads on most Murdoch media sites, but it does control ads on many blogs. Potentially Google could make more money by having people spending time reading news related blogs and less time on other news sites.
In that thread I've explained what First Click Free really is (its not new), because the BBC article is quite misleading. This is a small policy change to throw a bone to top-tier publishers like NYTimes, and is unlikely to have the impact you've described.
I know I'm probably the odd one out here, but I think this is a good thing. Newspapers have been arguing that they aren't getting paid enough for the service they provide and a lot of internet users are arguing that the service they provide have too little value to be worth paying for. Anything that can help bring these warring factions to some sort of actual confrontation can only be a good thing in the long run.
We've seen too much hand wringing and rhetoric and not enough action. Big media, you say internet users have been freeloading for too long, here are the tools to stop them, now use them. Internet users, you say you can do without access to major newspaper content, they've now limited your free access, so go do without.
I honestly don't know how it will play out in the end, but I'm pretty sure we'll see the future of news media rise from the ashes of the conflict, and I'm genuinely excited to see what it looks like.
This is not a very informative news article, but I did some research and here's what I think is happening: Google has always required that indexed sites show the indexed content to visitors that come through Google (to prevent bait-and-switch tactics). They're now allowing indexed sites to use bait-and-switch tactics after the fifth visit in one day.
This actually seems like it will have some noticeable (unintended) effects: won't it apply equally to Experts Exchange and their ilk?
(It's not clear what this all has to do with "First Click Free", which is an old program that seems to offer a smaller loophole in the "no bait-and-switch" rules. It's easiest to explain by example: If you go to a WSJ story via google, then click a link to another story, WSJ may ask you to register without being penalized by Google, even if that link didn't lead to a registration wall to the googlebot.)
I think Google is working with a handful of news publishers on this as opposed having this as a default option for everyone. So if you are not one of the few pre-approved sites you can't do this.
Is this another case where Google of the Chrome frame for IE6, where Google realizes that things won't change until they intervene? Really, the news sites should be the ones to add a cookie on their sites and redirect users after visiting x pages in a day - a very simple thing to build.
I don't understand why Google has to be involved, unless they want to push things forward or be on good terms with Fox and co. A very hacky solution, IMHO, and an approach that won't lead news sites to profitability.
A very hacky solution, IMHO, and an approach that won't lead news sites to profitability.
But if they do it right, they'll make the news sites happy as they are going out of business. The news sites will blame the users. Also, if they do it right, the users will be blaming the news sites and not Google.
I think Google is out to call Rupert Murdoch's bluff.
Google has to be involved because their policy was that if what you display is different from what they are indexing, you are gaming the index and are dropped from it.
Now they have modified that stance to say if what you display before a user makes 5 visits to your site through google is different from what they are indexing, you are gaming the index and are dropped from it.
The new stance is pretty lame on Google's part, and IMHO it breaks the web.
I would have trouble explaining this to my parents, or anyone not familiar with how cookies or "cloaking" work. I just heard the BBC world report (radio) summarize this coverage a few minutes ago; it made it sound like
- Google copies and stores news articles and serves them to users
- Google decides when users have to sign in upon visiting third-party news site.
These misconceptions are great if you're Rupert Murdoch. In reality, the change in Google's policy is minor:
- You are permitted to serve different content than the bot got (i.e. make them sign in) if the cookie on the other end has already requested 5 (or whatever) articles
- You could do that before, of course, but you would have gotten delisted for cloaking, just as with Google's web index. This is a new exception to that rule.
Laypersons have enough trouble understanding that news sites are not obligated to serve their content to Google. Making the issue more complicated (even if this isn't very complicated to us) may not be a good PR move.
"Some readers have discovered they can avoid paying subscription fees to newspaper websites by calling up their pages via Google."
This is absurd on so many levels. People find the article with Google, but it's the newspaper who puts it up for free. Yes, there is a question here, but this article is confused. The question is simple: newspapers produce content, Google indexes it, how do they split the ad revenues? I would think that both parties are free to put up ads on their pages, and they do, but newspapers are trying to cut into Google's ad revenue. I'm sure they're also willing to chip in to help pay for Google's cost of maintaining their index, after all, it's driving traffic to them...
If we're talking about a subscription article, then Google shouldn't (can't?) index it anyways?
Yep, they can. Know why? Because Agents with the Google codename get free access to subscription services. Why would this happen? Because Newspapers want to get fucking indexed and search traffic.
In fact there's a ff plugin out there that lets you change your user agent id to that of google's bot. Lets you see free articles, porn, etc. But mostly porn.
Seriously who reads more than 5 pages of news from the same source a day? I assume 99.99% will not get affected by this. People who are dumb enough to pay for online news will pay for online news, regardless of the changes.
Advertisement is the only way of revenue for news publishers, subscription is silly and short-sighted.
I usually read about 10-20 pages from the BBC and from my local newspapers' sites.
Of course, the latter will change, as the company that owned them has announced plans to make their entire newspaper constellation (several hundred local newspapers across the UK) paywalled, and both local newspapers for me are owned by the same company.
I rather pay for BBC than any US based News source. I want news not a liberal or conservative or neutral interpretation of the source, let me be the judge of what I want to conclude from the news. Just give me the facts.
If the Tories win the next UK election (they probably will), it's been suggested that as part of a deal they've done with Rupert Murdoch, they may destroy the BBC new website, or at least castrate it severely, so Murdoch can make more profits.
They can try, anything like that would have to get past the lords, and I doubt they'd be willing to castrate the BBC like that, certainly not to line a foreigner's pockets some more.
The present government are quite happy to throw away the people's historic rights such as the rihght to a fail trial and no collective punishment, in their Digital Economy Bill, in order to line foreigners' pockets (the RIAA and MPAA).
And the Tories' response to this? They think the DE Bill is basically sound, but doesn't go far enough.
I think we can take it as read that both the Labour and Conservative parties, when faced with a choice between the British people, and lining foregners' pockets, will choose the latter, esepcially when they are big donors.
I already pay for the BBC, at about £38/3months, I don't use my television for anything but video games, so if they take away the BBC News site, I will be very angry.
"Google users may start seeing registration pages appear when they click for a sixth time on any given day at websites of publishers using the program."
It's not entirely clear to me that this means that it's five pages from the same source - I think it might be five pages, total, from all participating sources.
When the "Miracle on the Hudson" happened, where did it hit first? Twitter, by somebody on the plane. This was hours before any print media even knew what was happening. On all levels that first post showed just how obsolete traditional media is becoming because it satisfied the major requirements of news: speed and credibility. What is being posted on Twitter is information, and news is a special case of information that has a sense of urgency associated with it. As blogging becomes more mainstream, traditional media will disappear, and this latest development from Google is intended (I believe) to push things in that direction.
Oh, and guys -- you perhaps ought to consider writing for it. :) The HN crowd is very educated, so many of you are the ideal candidates to be writing the news, as you witness it.
It really needs a way to support local and regional news for areas around the world. Johnson Press announced on monday plans (and a trial scheme of 3 local news areas) to paywall all of their local newspaper sites in the UK - this will be a huge loss to the internet, as JP effectively has a monopoly on UK local news - they are the only local news provider for about 80% of the UK.
As an example, my local newspaper and regional newspaper are both JP papers, and they are my primary source of local news online, as well as in print.
I used to write a few articles for it a while back (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Space_Probe_Crashed_into_Moon); I found the experience mixed. It was ok - but also not really suited for creating a news outlet with consistent and unbiased content.
So, Google gives publishers finer-grained control over how their readers can access their content via Google's services. They do it because the newspapers are getting desperate in their quest to find a working revenue model and seem likely to try drastic measures, like unlisting themselves from Google (which any site can do using robots.txt).
Doesn't the FT already do this ? - I'm failing to see what Google has to do with this. Some newspapers already send you a cookie and only let you see a certain number of articles before giving you a paywall.
I've noticed this recently about FT. My reaction is that when I notice a link is to FT I don't bother clicking it, because it's annoying to get the "register first" page, and that because I'm only going to close the page rather than register.
It's not a rebellious, "they're taking my free Internet" reaction, it's just an annoyance that I swat away, like a fly and with about as much thought. This post is orders of magnitude more thought than I've given it to date.
I wonder how many other people are going to react that way to FT and other sites?
I wonder if a news site counts the visit as a "visit" for purposes of selling ads and eyeballs when you get a paywall poster on your visit, and you just click away rather than register?
