Google to offer content from European news agencies

Content from eight of the national news agencies that own the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) is to be made available on the Internet via Google News, under a new accord announced here.

Users of Google News will be able to access both text and photos from the participating agencies, EPA and Google said in a joint statement Tuesday.

"This new approach not only enhances the experience for users, it also gives proper recognition to journalists and publishers who work hard to break the news," Josh Cohen, Google News' business product manager, said of the initiative.

Jörg Schierenbeck, EPA's managing director, hailed the accord as "good for all".

"EPA, the participating agencies and Google will benefit from the monetisation of our original articles and photos hosted by Google, and users will benefit from the user-friendly approach to this type of display of news agency content," he said.

"Previously, Google News would often display multiple copies of the same news agency articles and photos, with separate links to various sites," Google's Cohen said. "Thanks to the agreement with EPA, Google News will now be able to link directly to the original article, on a page hosted by Google."

The EPA stories will also include links to other websites where the items appear.

"The importance of this agreement is that the news agencies are recognised for the original content they create, and can generate new revenue through the advertising revenue share split with Google for all hosted articles on Google News," according to the chairman of EPA's supervisory board, Walter Grolimund.

Frankfurt-based EPA- is a consortium of 11 European news agencies, including Spain's Efe, which is the entity's second-biggest shareholder.

The consortium distributes more than 1,000 photos per day to hundreds of media outlets worldwide.

Google, headquartered in Mountain View, California, is the leading search engine the Internet.

source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Google-to-offer-content-from-European-news-agencies/articleshow/4280939.cms