New opportunities for newspapers set out by Google and the Daily Mirror

Andrew | 03 Dec 2009, 10:30

Two contrasting but encouraging market developments for newspaper economics have emerged in the past couple of days, just as the noble Lords begin debating the Digital Economy Bill in detail for the first time.

Google, on its official blog, has announced a new five-clicks-for-free option for publishers wanting to promote paywall protected content. Google’s move is an updating of its First Click Free feature. Publishers can now choose to allow users to view up to five pages per site per day for free then limit access to further content to those willing to register or make a payment.

Paid for site, FT.com, reports the move as Google making a ‘concession to publishers’ and the ‘latest effort to persuade content owners that it is an ally rather than an enemy.’

The website of the London Evening Standard – a free newspaper in hard copy since 12 October 2009 – reports Google’s ‘surprise’ move in the face of increasing pressure from publishers, particularly Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation. At a two-day workshop in Washington on the future of newspapers, Rupert Murdoch criticised aggregators for “feeding off the hard-earned efforts and investments of others.“

Meanwhile, at the 62nd World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad, Matt Kelly, associate editor of the Daily Mirror has been talking about the success his newspaper’s redeveloped websites: ‘sites that perform well for humans, not search engines.’

In his speech Kelly says ‘the new look mirror.co.uk was the fastest growing newspaper website in the country; year-on-year growth of 100 per cent or more – and the highest proportion of UK users of any newspaper website in the country.’

Kelly attributes the success to focussing more on Mirror brand values and character and less on search engine optimisation (SEO), given that ‘traffic from search engines is ridiculously low for a newspaper website.’

The Mirror decided to go for ‘a more emotional methodology’ in its navigation – in other words, “gasp,” “Tee-hee” and “Phwoar” instead of “music news,” “celebrity news” and “film news.”