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Turbulent Times: News Corp Service Could Change How Google, Bing Support Publishers

A forthcoming News Corp news-aggregation service could change how search engines like Google and Bing support publishers.

Knewz.com, the service, is expected to debut later this year if News Corp decides to move forward with the launch. The service will support a website and mobile app. It will serve all original news reports rather than quick summaries of existing articles.

The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NBC News, among a host of other digital newspapers and magazines, will provide the content for the news website and app.

The sites also will include publishers with conservative audiences such as the Daily Wire, the Daily Caller, the Washington Free Beacon and the Washington Examiner.

Marketers can expect that Knewz.com will turn search and marketing on its head. Articles will link directly to publisher sites, for example. News Corp also does not plan to take a cut of the advertising revenue, and is expected to share data with the publishers from which the content originates.

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The service also plans to “give exposure to smaller outlets that News Corp executives believe are often demoted in Google’s search results and Facebook’s social feed,” according to the report, which cites sources, who also said Knewz.com already has an advertising-sales strategy and marketing push. The service will select stories to serve up through a combination of human curation and software.

James Kennedy, a spokesman for News Corp., told the WSJ: “We want people to see a wide spectrum of news and views, from local, niche and national sources, without bent or bias.”

News Corp has also hired Noah Kotch, a media executive who has previously worked for NBC News and Fox News.

News Corp’s relationship with Google has been turbulent at best.

In 2014, Robert Thomson, CEO at News Corp, wrote a letter to the European Commission urging regulators to reconsider their settlement with Google. In the letter he addressed to Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, Thomson calls Google a "platform for piracy" because it aggregates content from media sites, and urges the EU to take a tougher approach. He also accused Google of taking unfair advantage of its ability to sell advertising that targets specific audiences at discounted rates.

Even earlier in January 2010, Rupert Murdoch blocked search engines from indexing news and serving up headlines and links on their Web site. U.K.-based NewsNow.co.uk, a search engine that aggregates news, became the first target.

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