Google explores printed material searches; opportunity for news sites?
One of the problems with services like Google News is there is no easy way to monetize them -- displaying contextual ads next to content raises legal questions and publishers might push back (though Topix.net does this a little with no repercussions so far).
A new patent application from Google reveals possible plans to enable search of printed material, pay-per-view documents and scanned documents with clickable ads, and even the ability for print publishers to swap out ads in digital copies of their printed pages, InternetNews.com reports.
"There are two key elements of the patent: a method for executing a permission protocol so that the publisher could authorize Google to display more text from the relevant publication; and storing scanned versions of printed documents along with data sets representing the ads that went with them." The patent even raises the idea of "subscription-like access," which would be a first for Google.
Right now Google is experimenting with several search services that could be part of the foundation for such a program. One, Google Print, lets users search the text of books and see actual images of the pages (similar to Amazon's Search Inside the Book feature). The second, Google Scholar, lets users search scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers. Google also announced plans last night to scan the books from five major libraries.
For Google Scholar, the company has already been making deals with academic publishers to index content normally not spidered. If news sites were to strike a similar deal for a much broader service that covers a wide range of content, this could be a big opportunity for newspaper publishers to increase archive sales via Google.
At the same time, though, Google would be moving into direct competition with LexisNexis (which just launched its own Web news search aimed at consumers) and companies like HighBeam Research. And both of those services already pay newspapers handsomely for their content. A full service from Google would likely increase reach and thus the market for such services, but also probably hurt the competition.
Dec 14, 2004 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)
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1 Weblogs reference 'Google explores printed material searches; opportunity for news sites?' Google Explores printed material searches;Trackback excerpt: This is the main point that Google is trying to reverse so that search providers like it can get a piece of the action, as well as provide a way to make more information available to the public and end users, without getting the ire of publishers. S... [Read More]
Posted on Digital Technology and Trends at December 27, 2004 10:09 AM
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