LA Times: Eight ways Google wave could ‘transform journalism’

Following the launch of browser sidebar Sidewiki, Google released 100,000 invitations for its new product Google Wave this week.

Here’s how the Official Google Blog previously explained GW:

“In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content – it allows for both collaboration and communication.”

The LA Times has looked at the applications of GW for journalists, suggesting the tool could enable more collaborative reporting; more discussion around an article (not elsewhere on a site’s messageboards, for example) and a better way to track editing changes.

Full story at this link…

Meanwhile for those that haven’t got an invitation (or are wondering what all the fuss is about) Tech Digest has come up with five websites/apps to explore while you wait.

The site is also reporting that Wave invitations are being sold on eBay – real or fake, the asking price is pretty low if you’re desperate for one…

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Sidewiki: some journalistic questions for Google

Sidewiki (noun): a browser sidebar that enables you to contribute and read helpful information alongside any web page (source: Google.com)

or…

Sidewiki (noun): an attempt by our online colonial masters to own all of the comments on our websites (source: Andrew Keen)

On this occasion Jeff Jarvis would not do what Google is doing: the CUNY journalism professor and WWGD? author is worried. He can see some potential dangers for the development of Sidewiki, launched by Google yesterday. His commenters share their thoughts too, in a split conversation between the BuzzMachine comments thread and the Sidewiki (you’ll have to take the plunge and install it if you want to see how that looks). Jarvis says:

“This goes contrary to Google’s other services – search, advertising, embeddable content and functionality – that help advantage the edge. This is Google trying to be the centre. Quite ungoogley, I’d say.”

Sidewiki has the potential to be great for freedom of speech but what about the nastier side? Publishers no longer have control of the look of part of their site. Google has tested the application at news organisations it says – testimonials here – but it’s still developing its technology, and asking for feedback.

Some initial thoughts, then. The main concerns for journalists and news organisations might include:

1) Will it lose money for news sites?

Andrew Keen, writing for the Telegraph, comments:

“Sidewiki is a brazen attempt to own the Internet. What Sidewiki would do is replace/supplement the Telegraph comments section on this page with a Google comments page. So all comments on the internet would, in theory, be owned by Google (which, presumably, they could sell advertisements around – thereby eating into my salary).”

2) What happens about libel?

Google publishes its programme policy here, at this link.

‘Keep it legal,’ it says (and it will report us to the ‘appropriate authorities’ if we don’t).

“If you believe that someone is violating these policies, use the ‘Report Abuse’ button within Sidewiki.  We’ll review your report and take action if appropriate.  Just because you disagree with certain material or find it to be inappropriate doesn’t mean we’ll remove it.  We understand that our users have many different points of view, and we take this into consideration when reviewing reports of abuse.  Although not all reports will result in removal, we do rely on our users to tell us about materials that may be violating our policies.”

Have fun with that Google!

Here are a few questions about the legal aspect from Jo Wadsworth, online editor at the Brighton Argus, for whom comment moderation is part of her job:

“How long does it takes to get abusive comments removed? Where’s moderation criteria? Can site switch it off? Can trolls be banned?”

Meanwhile, SEO consultant and blogger Malcolm Coles is having a play… This morning, he says, he was finding it hard to resist the temptation to be the first to sidewiki the home page of UK newspapers. But someone else got there first.

Please add your own thoughts and questions. In the Google Sidewiki – to your left, via Twitter (@journalismnews) or in the comments…

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Reuters: Google CEO raises doubts about Murdoch’s online pay walls

Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, yesterday questioned Rupert Murdoch’s plans to put general news content behind pay walls at some of the News Corp titles, Reuters reports.

General news publishers would find it hard to charge for their content because too much is available for free elsewhere, Schmidt argued, speaking via video link to the Royal Television Society audience in Cambridge.

“[M]y guess is for niche and specialist markets … it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news.”

Full post at this link…

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paidContent.org: Interview with Google News’ Josh Cohen

A timely interview with Google News’ Josh Cohen, senior business product manager, following Google’s submission of a micropayment model for newspapers.

paidContent asks Cohen about publishers’ attitudes to Google, whether its become a scapegoat for the industry and about the search company’s discussions with publishers.

He also talks about adding more ’sources’ to Google News – following experiments with adding Wikipedia to the aggregator:

“As new, different sources for news and information begin to develop we will want to try to incorporate that as much as possible. What is a news source? It is increasingly grey. As much as possible we try to stay out of any sort of editorial or qualitative judgments. [The] aggregation of pubic information data – that certainly didn’t exist a few years ago.”

Full interview at this link…

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Nieman Journalism Lab: Google developing micropayment system in pitch to newspapers

Google has announced plans for a micropayment system that would be available to both Google services and non-Google properties within the next year.

The outline of the system is given in a document submitted to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

“Google believes that an open web benefits all users and publishers. However, ‘open’ need not mean free. We believe that content on the internet can thrive supported by multiple business models – including content available only via subscription. While we believe that advertising will likely remain the main source of revenue for most news content, a paid model can serve as an important source of additional revenue. In addition, a successful paid content model can enhance advertising opportunities, rather than replace them,” said the search company in the document, which looks at how Google’s expertise could help the newspaper industry.

The paper discusses the problems of introducing a paid content model, but suggests a micropayment system – built as a development of its existing Google Checkout product – could work for the news industry.

Here’s how it would look as written in the document:

• Single sign-on capability for users to access content and manage subscriptions;
• Ability for publishers to combine subscriptions from different titles together for one price;
• Ability for publishers to create multiple payment options and easily include/exclude content behind a paywall;
• Multiple tiers of access to search including 1) snippets only with ’subscription’ label; 2) access to preview pages; and 3) ‘first click free’ access;
• Advertising systems that offer highly relevant ads for users, such as interest-based advertising.

“Google already works with a number of premium content providers in a manner similar to the vision above. Combining our e-commerce system with our search capability and advertising platform will allow for even more flexibility for publishers and users alike,” explains the document.

The search firm also suggests the potential for more money for publishers from syndication using Google’s existing technology for both better distribution and advertising around syndicated content.

Full report at this link…

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ReadWriteWeb: Google may hand over Caribbean journalists’ IP addresses

ReadWriteWeb follows up Wikileaks’ report that Google could comply with an order to supply the IP addresses used to access a news site’s GMail account, as part of a libel claim in the Santa Clara, California Superior Court, regarding government corruption in the Turks & Caicos Islands.

The TCI Journal is a news and commentary site based in the Islands, run by ‘journalists, lawyers, professionals, students and patriots.’ RWW reports:

“A property developer discussed at length in the Journal’s documentation of corruption and in the official UK government inquiry report is now suing the journal for libel.”

According to Wikileaks and RWW, Google intends to hand over the requested records in just over two weeks, unless the Journal files a counter-motion with the court itself.

Google has supplied RWW with a statement that said the company was ’still evaluating all [its] legal options regarding this particular request’.

Full post at this link…

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Search Engine Roundtable: Google News now re-indexing with latest version

It’s noted on the Search Engine Roundtable blog that Google News is now re-indexing and crawling news sources for the latest version, provided updates are posted within a ’short period of time’.

In the past, once a story was published and Google News indexed it, Google News would keep the item as it was, even if changes were then made by the publisher.

Full post at this link…

Users in the Google News Help forum discuss the issue here. Google employee Inbal Drukker said:

“We now do have the ability to re-crawl your articles to make sure we have the latest version displayed on our site if these updates are published within a short period of time.”

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OUT-LAW.com: Google not liable for defamation in snippets, rules Eady

Google is not liable as a publisher even if ’snippets’ (the summaries contained in its search results) contain libellous words, a high court ruled last week.

The search engine’s UK and US divisions were sued in England by a training business over comments about its distance learning courses made on a US web forum – an excerpt of which then appeared in search results for the firm.

“Google said that Google Inc. should be sued in California, not England. But even if England is the proper forum, it argued, Google has no responsibility for the words complained of, and therefore there is ‘no reasonable prospect of success’ which is a requirement of rules on serving lawsuits outside the court’s jurisdiction,” reports OUT-LAW.com.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Eady made some additional, significant comments (close to this writer’s heart):

“There appears to be no previous English authority dealing with this modern phenomenon (…) Indeed, it is surprising how little authority there is within this jurisdiction applying the common law of publication or its modern statutory refinements to Internet communications.”

Full story at this link…

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Google European Public Policy Blog: On working with newspapers

Josh Cohen, senior business product manager for Google, helpfully reminds news publishers that they can stop Google from indexing their webpages by usint the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP). Publishers can also set a time period for indexing, for example if content goes into a paid archive after a certain time.

Cohen’s comments follow a declaration from the European Publishers Council last week demanding new intellectual property rights protection.

“Some proposals we’ve seen from news publishers are well-intentioned, but would fundamentally change – for the worse – the way the web works,” he writes.

“Our guiding principle is that whatever technical standards we introduce must work for the whole web (big publishers and small), not just for one subset or field.

“There’s a simple reason behind this. The internet has opened up enormous possibilities for education, learning, and commerce so it’s important that search engines makes it easy for those who want to share their content to do so – while also providing robust controls for those who want to limit access.”

Full post at this link…

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Buzzmachine: Could Google’s Wave be new reporting tool?

Jeff Jarvis ponders the potential of Wave – Google’s next generation email product announced last week (see video below) – as a tool for journalists:

“In Wave, I see more than a new generation of email cum wikis cum Twitter cum groupware. Because it can feed blog and web pages and Twitter, I see a new way to create content, collaborative and live. I see a new way to make news,” he writes.

“Imagine a team of reporters – together with witnesses on the scene – able to contribute photos and news to the same Wave (formerly known as a story or a page). One can write up what is known; a witness can add facts from the scene and photos; an editor or reader can ask questions. And it is all contained under a single address – a permalink for the story – that is constantly updated from a collaborative team.”

Full post at this link…

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