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TechCrunch has a great piece up about online news. Here’s a taste:
So how powerful is Google when it comes to parceling out traffic to news sites? If you are talking about Google News
, the answer is that it is not quite as powerful as you might think. In the U.S., Google News is overshadowed by both Yahoo News and even the sites controlled by the New York Times (which includes NYTimes.com, Boston.com, HeraldTribune.com, and several other newspaper sites). According to comScore, Google News attracted 16.2 million unique visitors in the U.S. in February, compared to 42.3 million for Yahoo News and 46.2 million for the sites operated by New York Times Digital.
Here’s the kicker:
Google does not control the news, it exposes it.
The whole thing is a fascinating read. As newspapers fold, they have to learn to survive online. At this point, very few are getting it right. Hopefully they figure it out - and quickly. I think people who study journalism are scrambling for an excuse to explain why news organizations - primarily newspapers - have utterly failed at building a good, profitable Internet presence. If anything, services Google News and yahoo News is helping newspapers by sending traffic to their websites.