Google`s Living Stories: the Final Nail in the Coffin for Paper Media?
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Google has earned the wrath of publishers before. You'd be upset at Google, too, if it looked like the search giant was going to put you out of business -- or at least force you to seriously rethink your business model. Living Stories, one of Google's more recent endeavors, presents news in a whole new way...with repercussions likely to be felt at every big newspaper.
Google is so financially successful that it appears as if the tech giant doesn’t feel as if the rules apply to them. During a time when most companies are cutting down on their free services and applications, Google keeps churning them out. Nor do they stick with the safe bet. Now they look set to do news publishers one better.
Their latest endeavor, Living Stories, is perhaps their most interesting and daring yet. A global study recently found that the age of the average Internet user is 28 years. It has also been found that those in their mid- to late twenties don’t really read newspapers anymore. Even worse, online newspapers are severely struggling to draw readers in and generate any kind of revenue.
None of these facts deterred Google from teaming up with The New York Times and The Washing Post for Living Stories, which according to Google is “an experiment in presenting news designed specifically for the online environment.”
Essentially, the new project offers complete coverage of an on-going story in one location, which is prioritized by one URL. Google believes this will allow their users to quickly navigate between news articles, opinion pieces, and features without long waits for pages to load.
The Living Stories site explains that “each story has an evolving summary of current developments as well as an interactive timeline of critical events. Stories can be explored by themes, significant participants, or multimedia. Updates to the story are highlighted each time you come back and older news is summarized.”
Next: What’s the Story? >>
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