While many newspaper publishers are facing declines in the slowly recovering economy, a new report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development shows there is strong growth in online news readership.
The study, entitled The Future of News and the Internet, shows that about 5 percent of all internet visits are related to reading news. The source claims this is a conservative estimate and suggests search engine news accounted for nearly a quarter of overall U.S. traffic for news.
The OECD reminds organizations of the need to update news more often because of the immediacy of the internet – especially important in light of Google’s launch of Caffeine, which the search engine giant says offers "50 percent fresher results" than previous web indexing systems.
Moreover, while channels like Google News can be a good way to drive traffic to a website, the OECD suggests that cross-media publishing on multiple platforms is an important way to get news consumed and generate clicks.
A report from HitWise earlier this year showed that Facebook is increasingly gaining prominence as a site for news. The source thought perhaps the social media site’s "personalized news channel" played into Facebook’s popularity for news searchers.
Google News is now considering a homepage that offers users similar news preference options. According to Search Engine Land, some Google News users are currently testing the company’s updated format that includes a "News For You" section.
