News Corp is reportedly working on a news aggregation platform set to roll out within the year. It was made to rival Google News and other platforms amid issues on payment, content ranking, and supposed biases.
Knewz
The Wall Street Journal reported that its parent company News Corp is developing a news aggregation service that aims to compete against Google News and Facebook. Currently called Knewz.com, the new platform will be dedicated to aggregating stories from well-known sources such as New York Times, Washington Post, and NBC News, but it will also give equal importance to smaller outlets that News Corp executives believe are frequently demoted on Google and Facebook.
The new platform is being developed into a website and a mobile app, and is set to officially roll out some time later this year. It will include national outlets, magazines, local newspapers, and digital publications, and Knewz.com will not be taking a cut on the advertising revenue.
Google And Facebook Bias?
The development of Knewz.com is actually related to some news publications’ upset with Google and Facebook over payment and content rankings. What’s more, there are also those who believe that Google has an anti-conservative bias, something that News Corp evidently wants to balance by showcasing deserving stories even from smaller outlets “regardless of politics.”
On the matter of the supposed bias by Google, a year-long analysis by The Economist reported no definitive proof that Google is deliberately demoting news from conservative sources or helping Democrats. Instead, it promotes news sources that are trusted.
Whatever the case or reasons behind the development of Knewz.com, what is clear is that if it ends up being a success, it will certainly take some power away from Google and Facebook and change the way a lot of people get their news. As of 2018, 68 percent of Americans say they occasionally get their news from social media, with Facebook being the number one site where people get their news.
