See http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/31/ap4073834.html
This is interesting -- to me, anyway -- for the following reasons: As international broadcasters have struggled to remain relevant as radio and TV have transformed, one interesting method that international broadcasters could use to recruit new listeners was to have a news or feature story about their country show up in Google News; a reader could then click on the story and then be sent off to the broadcaster's website. I've done this more than once and then found myself on the RNW and VOA web pages. Theoretically, the reader might take an interest in the page they've landed on, and thus discover the audio (and written) media produced by RNW or VOA in other subjects. As such, Google served as a pipeline or conduit for other news sources. Now, with this new agreement with the Associated Press, Google's role as a conduit is changed -- it now hosts the news itself (and can presumably furnish its own advertising), instead of sending traffic to other web sites. I'll reserve final judgment until I see how it works in real life, but I do not consider this a positive development for international broadcasters and public awareness of international media. Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA USA _______________________________________________ Swprograms mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/swprograms To unsubscribe: Send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or visit the URL shown above.
