Google Previews A New Feature: ‘News Showcase’

To highlight journalism in a new way, Google is rolling out a new feature “News Showcase” on its platform. This new feature which will appear initially on Google News in Android is made up of story panels that will allow publishers to connect with their readership in a new way. The product will launch soon after on iOS as well and will be expanded to Google Discover and Search in the future.

According to Google, the News Showcase is designed to benefit both publishers and readers. It allows participating publishers to share their expertise and editorial voice through an enhanced storytelling experience. The feature will give readers insight into important news stories and will help publishers develop a more meaningful relationship with their audiences.

The new story panels offer participating publishers the ability to package the stories that appear within Google’s News products with unique features like a timeline of events, bullet points, and related articles.

In the future, Google will also include other components like video, audio, and daily briefings in News Showcase. In addition to greater exposure on Google products, publishers will be paid to create content for the News Showcase as well.

Google has signed partnerships for News Showcase with almost 200 leading publications in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K., and Australia. These include Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, Folha de S.Paulo, Band, and Infobae along with regionally and locally major publications such as El Litoral, GZH, WAZ, and SooToday.

Few other partnering publications are listed in the image below:

Google says that this number of news publications is likely to increase as the company is working to expand the News Showcase to other countries including India, Belgium, and the Netherlands. At present, Google News Showcase is made available to readers in Brazil and Germany, and in the coming months, Google will expand this feature to other countries where local frameworks support these partnerships.

Is The ‘News Showcase’ Different From Google’s Other News Products?

Yes, it is!

In Google’s official blog post, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet states that the new approach – News Showcase – is distinct from Google’s other news products. This is because the new approach leans on the editorial choices individual publishers make about which stories to show readers and how to present them.

The News Showcase builds on Google’s existing news licensing program, which is already paying publishers for high-quality journalism, as well as other news-related efforts – like Subscribe with Google, Web Stories, and audio news. It will also provide readers more context and a greater outlook on important stories in the news and drive valuable traffic to a publisher’s site.

Google’s $1 Billion Investment

Along with the new feature “News Showcase”, Google is also planning to build long-term support with an initial $1 billion investment in partnerships with news publishers and the future of news. In fact, the company’s ‘News Showcase’ is part of a $1 billion investment within the news industry which was also announced in the same official blog post by Sundar Pichai. This financial commitment — one of Google’s biggest to date —will pay publishers to build and curate high-quality content especially for a different kind of online news experience through the News Showcase.

In the past few years, Google has taken many steps – from sending 24 billion visits to news websites globally every month to the Google News Initiative’s $300 million commitment to support the news industry. This includes emergency financial support for local publishers globally to help ease the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as their Digital Growth Program that is aimed at small and medium-sized publishers to hasten up their business growth. But as the company still feels the urge to do more, they are set to invest $1 billion for paying publishers for their news content. 

News Showcase and Financial Investment: Google’s Long-Term Commitment

Both Google’s News Showcase and financial investment — which will extend beyond the initial three years — is a long-term commitment to the overall sustainability of the company’s news partners around the world.