Google to Launch ‘News Showcase’ in U.S. This Summer

thewrap.com:

blog post announcing the launch.Jansen did not name a date but said the News Showcase would launch “later this summer.”The effort was first announced by Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in 2020, when he promised a “new kind of news experience” that would benefit both readers and news organizations.

Since then, Google has signed more than 2,300 publications worldwide to the licensing program and expanded to 22 countries globally, but efforts to negotiate with some publishers delayed the U.S.

launch, The Wall Street Journal reported.Jansen described the Showcase as displaying selecting important stories selected by journalists, which are included in curated panels that add “useful context to help readers understand key issues.”The panels appear in Google News and Discover, and readers who click are brought directly to full articles on the news publisher’s website. “This helps publishers deepen relationships with their audiences and gives them more direct control of presentation and branding,” Jansen wrote.

What’s key is that “we’re also paying participating news organizations to give readers access to a limited amount of their paywalled content,” he continued. “This access means readers will have the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s articles than they would otherwise be able to, encouraging them to learn more about the publication — and potentially subscribe.”U.S.