Will the problems facing New Zealand news media never cease? No sooner had they adjusted to a world ruled by ‘clicks’, than that world is faced with the prospect of ‘zero clicks’.
Not long ago, I was watching an electronic tickertape in a newsroom telling brow-beaten staff which of their stories were ‘trending’ online (and, by implication, what was too boring to justify a reporter’s attention). In another media organisation I saw similar information scrolling across the bottom of newsroom screens. ‘Clicks’ was what it was all about – analytics showing, minute-by-minute, how many people were reading respective news stories on their phones, iPads, or computers.
Some of those ‘clicks’ were directly on news media’s own websites and apps. Many more, however, were through intermediary search engines. The undisputed leader of search was Google. It even went beyond search by proactively looking for the topics that interested you and feeding relevant stories to you via Google Discover.
For some people, Discover became their only source of news. It was convenient and, because it targeted specific areas of interest, it was material they wanted to see and read. Some news media organisations saw that as a helpful way of reaching an audience and came to rely on it for ‘clicks’. A shame, of course, about all those stories that people should know about, but which sat outside their personalised search algorithms.
Then along came Generative AI and speculation that services like ChatGPT would smash Google’s dominance. The soothsays did not, however, reckon with the ingenuity and strategic skills of the people at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California. The headquarters of Google’s parent, Alphabet, went into overdrive to head off the generative AI newbies before they could establish a ruinous foothold.
The result was Google’s AI Overviews, which was rolled out to 100 countries last year.
You have probably seen the result, perhaps without realising what it was. You simply read it and thought: “Gee, that’s a useful summary”. So useful, in fact, that you didn’t bother clicking on any of the search results below it. Continue reading “Hero to zero: Google still comes out the winner”