Google to Save Newspapers?

By Rex Moore | More Articles
December 10, 2009 | Comments (2)

At a time when newspapers -- led by News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS ) Rupert Murdoch -- are blasting Google (Nasdaq: GOOG ) for poaching their content, the search giant has developed something that may greatly help the struggling industry.

Google Living Stories is an experiment with the New York Times (NYSE: NYT ) and Washington Post (NYSE: WPO ) that aggregates stories by topic:

Each story has an evolving summary of current developments as well as an interactive timeline of critical events. Stories can be explored by themes, significant participants or multimedia. … Updates to the story are highlighted each time you come back, and older news is summarized.

I like the way the pages are presented, and they're far more useful than my trying to find information the "old-fashioned" way. Google is hosting the pages for the time being, but they'll eventually live on the newspapers' websites.

Try out a couple of topics … say, health care or the Washington Redskins. Do you find this useful? Would you be more likely to visit a newspaper's website that uses Living Stories? Should Murdoch and competitors like Gannett (NYSE: GCI ) and McClatchy (NYSE: MNI ) breathe easier? Let me know what you think in the comments box below.

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Fool analyst Rex Moore was a paperboy for the Austin American-Statesman. He owns no companies mentioned in this article. Google is a Motley Fool Rule Breakers selection. Try any of our Foolish newsletters today, free for 30 days.

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Report this Comment On December 11, 2009, at 8:57 PM, Fool wrote:

This alone is not going to save newspapers. It promotes content, but how does it support a paper? There's more to it than just displaying content in new ways.
Report this Comment On January 02, 2010, at 6:10 PM, savvyelrod wrote:

Gone are the days when folks walked out to the driveway to pickup the newspaper, gone are the days when folks call in an add to sell a car, bed, or anything else except realestate. The only thing keeping realestate adds is the choke hold of the MLS. Someday soon, some " Craigs List" guy will figure out how to draw the bulk of homebuyers to a new website and bingo, the last leg of the revenue stool for newspapers will follow the car, jobs, firewood ect.. Young adults get everything they need for info/news from an I-Pod. MCI traded a few years ago for 75 bucks per share, today they struggle to hold on to 3 bucks. This is likely less than the value of ink and delivery trucks. Newspapers will jion the long list of don't need em anymore. Kodak film and Travel agents come to mind...

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