Google News for Android and iOS is getting a revamp in the coming months. All of the websites listed will have AMP versions, which are cached on Google servers to instantly load on mobile devices. Youtube videos and Google Newsstand will also be incorporated into the redesign. It is currently unknown if the existing Newsstand app will be shuttered or not.
Google has apparently been talking to publishers about the design, and AdAge quotes one anonymous publishing executive as saying, “It’s a consolidation of all the ways you can interact with news on Google…There are a lot of Google services where you find news, and what they’re trying to do is bring it all under one brand.”
Google delivers 10 billion clicks to publishers’ websites each month. Last year, it scrapped its First Click Free policy that allowed access to paywalled articles through search and said it was working on a suite of new tools to help publishers reach audiences. “We really recognize the transition to digital for publishers hasn’t been easy,” Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler told The Wall Street Journal. “The economics are pretty clear: If publishers aren’t successful, we can’t be successful.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
