Google launches ‘News Showcase’ tool with content from over 100 publications
The tech giant has signed up more than 120 national and local publications in the UK
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Your support makes all the difference.Google has launched its News Showcase tool, offering personalised news content to users in the UK.
The feature will allow users to personalise the feed by choosing which publishers to follow, while also being recommended others by Google
The tech giant has signed up more than 120 national and local publications in the UK, who Google are paying to licence their content.
Appearing as a new feed within Google News and Discover, it will include input from the likes of Archant, DC Thomson, Evening Standard, the Financial Times, Iliffe Media, The Independent, Midland News Association, New Statesman, Newsquest, JPI Media, Reach, The Telegraph and Reuters.
As part of the rollout in the UK, the feature will also give users access to select content normally found behind a paywall, which Google said would increase the range of content on offer while enabling publishers to encourage readers to become subscribers.
It has previously been available in a number of other countries around the world. The launch comes as news publishers have struggled to generate advertising revenue during the internet age in the face of dominant tech giants.
Ronan Harris, Google's UK and Ireland managing director and vice president, said the feature would allow UK publishers to reach new readers and showcase their work in new ways.
“News Showcase content from our publisher partners will automatically start to appear in panels in Google News and Discover, and direct readers to the full article on the publisher’s site,” he said.
“People will see panels from publishers they follow in their personalised feeds and they might also see panels from publishers they’re less familiar with, presented as suggestions in the Google News ‘For You’ feed and inside Newsstand, the discovery area of Google News.
"Panels are already appearing in Google News on Android, iOS, and the mobile web, and in Discover on iOS, and will start appearing in other versions of these products soon.
"With News Showcase panels, editors at news organisations can help explain complicated news topics and bring context to readers looking to understand more.
"Panels on News Showcase display an enhanced view of an article or articles, giving participating publishers more ways to bring important news to readers and explain it in their own voice, along with more direct control of presentation and branding, and direct the reader through to their websites."
Last month, Facebook announced the full launch of Facebook News in the UK, a dedicated area of the social media app that will congregate news from a variety of outlets.
Users in the UK will see headlines and stories of the day, personalised to their interests using data Facebook has collected, in a tab separate to the similarly-named News Feed.
The social media giant is partnering with Channel 4 News, Daily Mail Group, DC Thomson, Financial Times, Sky News and Telegraph Media Group.
This is in additions to outlets that have already been announced in the partnership, including The Economist, The Guardian, The Independent, and STV.
Additional reporting by Press Association
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