Google to take on magazines

As if Google doesn’t have hands in nearly everything, the company now wants to allow individuals to publish personalized magazines. Recently, Gilbarco introduced a kiosk system that enables Google local search, maps and coupons to be accessible in gas stations, convenience stores and the like. In addition, Google, with its patent filed in May of 2006, shows interest in expanding this type of “on demand” content by introducing itself to the magazine publishing industry.

Though do-it-yourself publishing is now available through services such as Lulu.com, Google’s vision takes on a very different user-generated content model. In the article, Google looking at DIY Magazine Publishing, puts together coherent details of the project:

You will have the ability to create your own ‘customize publication’ that contains the content (and advertising) that you have chosen. There is the ability to search content to add to your ‘personalized’ publication as well as suggestions generated through user history. The system can track a given topic a user is monitoring and update/suggest new related content as it becomes available. Content could also be searched by price, topic and dates for example, or any other information ‘deemed to be useful to either a user and/or a content provider in locating content to be provided in a customized publication’. You could also set updates on a given frequency (weekly, monthly) and set which content items you wish to have updated for that given period.

Overall, the idea seems more like a novelty than an actual product. Considering Google’s constant drive to gather up as much content as it can get it’s crawlers to capture, the aggregation side-note to this seems plausible for their business model. However, convincing the magazine subscriber that this model is ‘better’ because of its customizability will create a challenge. And in all seriousness, who wants to take the time to physically publish information that is probably available through online subscriptions. We’ll have to see how this plays out – if it ever does…

HighBeam Research to launch new website, Newser.com

UPDATE October 30, 2007: Newser — an Online News Service from HighBeam Research and Michael Wolff — Debuts Today

This Tuesday, October 30, HighBeam Reseach will release Newser.com, a news website that creators Patrick Spain and Michael Wolff hope will change the current trend of content aggregation.

Newser stories run approximately 120 words in length, and feature photos licensed from the Associated Press as well as links to the original story source. Readers can also determine their mix of hard and soft stories through a “slider box,” which Spain hopes will introduce “different ways of how to perceive news.” The site, which was designed by Chicago-based Duo Consulting, also features the top stories of the day and categorizes news by topic and publication date.

So what makes Newser different from others like Google or Yahoo? The answer: Humans. Instead of using “spiders” or “crawlers” built off of algorithms to gather information from the web, an entire staff has been hired to contribute to content found on Newser.com.

“Nobody is really aggregating news in a meaningful way,” said Spain, 55, who ran and sold business-information service Hoovers.com. “Google in a robotic way [aggregates stories] from hundreds of brands and sources. But it doesn’t have any editorial zest.”