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Google News Showcase tears down paywalls in more countries

By Alan Friedman

Updated: Feb 15, 2021, 1:00 AM

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Google News Showcase tears down paywalls in more countries

Nothing can be more annoying than having a headline catch your attention and then finding yourself unable to open up the story because it is placed behind a paywall. Last year, the Google News Showcase was launched to deliver curated stories to readers. At the time, Google called it "a product where we support and pay publishers to curate their journalism just for you." In other words, Google's program will allow it to subsidize the cost of smashing through a paywall to allow users to have access to certain stories via AI capabilities

In some countries, Google will tear down the paywall on news publications with the News Showcase

The Google News Showcase was originally launched in Germany and Brazil; last week it was offered in Australia. Today, Google started bringing the feature to even more countries, namely the U.K. and Argentina. In the former country, 120 publications have signed up to have their work distributed by Google including The Financial Times, The Telegraph, and Reuters. In the latter country, 40 titles, including the two largest newspapers in the country, have joined the Google News Showcase.

Héctor Aranda, CEO of Clarín and clarin.com, the largest media organization in Argentina, said, "We are satisfied to continue building a mature and productive relationship with Google in Argentina. As the owner of several of the most visited journalistic sites in the country, Grupo Clarín contributes an important value to the ecosystem and the consumption of digital content in Argentina. The possibility that this value is recognized by a relevant platform like Google is an auspicious step."

Francisco Seghezzo, CEO of La Nación, one of the largest newspapers in Argentina, stated that "Google products are an important source of traffic for La Nación and we are confident that News Showcase will allow us to display some of our articles in an even more attractive way for Google News users. It is an exciting new step forward to building an even stronger bond between La Nación and Google that will favor our audiences."

The largest commercial publisher in the U.K. is Reach and that firm's Chief Audience Officer, David Higgerson, said, "We welcome this initiative and its potential to give public interest journalism a more visible platform in Google. For us, public interest journalism thrives when it is not just about recording events but is of genuine interest to the public and is able to attract an audience that means it is sustainable. Google's work here will help give readers a new way to discover news which is important to them, which they may not otherwise have discovered."

Zach Leonard, CEO of The Independent, said, "Google News Showcase extends The Independent’s well established partnership with Google, delivering on the brand’s diversified strategy to develop data-rich, engaged customer relationships, licensing revenues and digital subscriptions. We’re thrilled to join the platform as it rolls out."

Google says that the News Showcase allows editors of participating news organizations to make it easier to explain complicated topics. It also helps users looking to dive deeper into certain stories gain more context through the use of enhanced panels. In the countries that now have the feature, content from the panels will appear in Google News and the Discover. Links to full versions of these stories will appear. Panels are already appearing in Google News on Android, iOS, and the mobile web. They are also surfacing in the Discover page on iOS.

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.