Is Google Becoming a ‘Real’ Publisher: Moves in Australia May Signal a New Thrust for the Online Ad Outfit
January 28, 2021
I read “Google Revives Australia News Platform Launch Amid Content Payment Fight.” Feint, misstep, or gut punch? I am not sure. Australia is a long way from Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. The write up mentions a Googler in whom I have an interest: Melanie Silva, a VP at the mom-and-pop online ad vendor Google. Ms. Silva has responsibility for managing and directing Google Australia. She has previous financial and travel sector experience and eight years at the GOOG. According to Time Auction:
She holds a Bachelor of Economics degree from Macquarie University, Diploma of Financial Planning and Diploma of Interactive and Direct Marketing from the Institute of Direct Marketing in the United Kingdom. She is a karaoke fan, amazing wife and mother of two.
Ms. Silva would be in charge of Google’s own Australian news Web service News Showcase.
Instead of paying non-Googley publishers for their content’s headlines and news extracts, Google may be jumping into “real” publishing. As I pointed out in my monograph, Google: The Digital Gutenberg, the mom-and-pop ad outfit had become the world’s largest publisher. Sorry, Facebook. But each Google search result page is a newly published item, stuffed with individualized ads and shaped content. When I wrote the monograph for a now defunct Brexit zapped publisher, no one cared. Google? A publisher? You must be kidding. Right, more craziness from Harrod’s Creek.
The idea is simple. Form partnerships with Googley outfits for content. Boom. A news site which sidesteps Australia’s keen desire to capture revenue from the mom-and-pop online ad company.
How realistic is this Googley play? The answer is, “It depends.” Google wants to avoid getting into the check writing habit for mere nation states. The French deal is not one the GOOG wants to watch diffuse like tribbles across the globe. On the other hand, maybe the wizards of Mountain View will find a way to make the “real” publisher model work. In that case, established “real” news outfits may have a problem.
What if one of the seven outfits demonstrating Google-approved qualities and publishes syndicated news just like the “real” news outfits in Australia? Well, that will keep some legal eagles in ocean front nests guarded by new BMWs happy.
As I wrote in 2008:
What sets Google’s publishing process apart is the small number of individual steps required to take in, process, and push out information. (Google: The Digital Gutenberg, Infonortics, 2009, page 24)
“Small number” means efficiencies “real” news companies cannot easily imagine or implement.
Worth watching Australia. The country may designate Google as its new red kangaroo.
Stephen E Arnold, January 28, 2021
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