Goodbye Google News Magazine Subscriptions

[GNews]

No real 'shocker' here but in layman's terms:
Google News terminated the Magazine subscriptions feature on search.

If not familiar, it allowed users to download print version of magazines (eBook essentially). It's been around since 2012, though I'm willing to bet some didn't even know this existed.

They are refunding everyone who was subscribed to the service the last payment. Nice right? Giving the loyal people their duckets and schillings back.

Trickle down effects on site stats: The end result of this will not be heavy on SERPS. However, it may de-power some of the magazine/publishing companies' sites as it further strains their relationship with cilentele. This means their brand is less accessible.....


courtesy of ExtremeTech

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'd say one effect it'll have is there will be that fewer numbers to inflate their reach to advertisers.

Like if you look inside print magazines, they tell you their distribution numbers. Subscriptions are always a tiny bit, the amount they send to newsstands are always tiny, and then there's a massive number of free copies they send around after the fact to artificially inflate their reach and charge advertisers higher rates.

Most of these print magazines are going to die or change drastically, even if they can make the switch over to digital for the most part. The model of having fewer salaried writers pumping out a few extremely high quality articles per month with on-staff photographers won't play out the same when they're dealing with advertisers who can get real metrics and won't pay stupid rates. The magazines will have to learn to play at scale, and that's not going so hot for most online magazines and news sites as we keep seeing massive layoffs (especially as secret money runs dry from governmental bills expiring).