#32 Media Trends & Innovation

Google rolls out AI Overviews, a new search mode that can prove damaging for content creators and publishers

At the annual Google I/O developer conference on May 10th, Google revealed what the new Search experience will look like. In the new experience, organic search results appear to be pushed far down in favour of curated AI results. This new experience prioritizes generative AI by providing information summaries based on existing content, bumping links to the original content toward the bottom of the page. Google announced that AI Overviews (formerly known as Search Generative Experience) will begin rolling out to US audiences in mid-May. According to Raptive, the new Search will significantly reduce search traffic to content creators’ websites, directly impacting their ad revenue and, by extension, their livelihoods. A December internal report from the Atlantic concluded that large publishers could lose 20% to 40% of their traffic if Google rolled out its search-generative experience, a grave loss that could pressure the industry’s already thin margins. In a recent story about AI overviews titled “Can Google Give A.I. Answers Without Breaking the Web?” The New York Times wrote that it receives “a significant chunk” of its traffic from Google searches. Without that traffic, publisher readership will shrink and ad space will become devalued. (Sources: Raptive, InsiderIntelligence, Jean-Yves Scauri)

Apple’s news app becomes a serious alternative for publishers to drop search and social media referral traffic

The free version of Apple News has been a source of audience attention for news publishers since it launched in 2015. But while many publishers have come to the conclusion that traffic has less business value than they once thought, they’re still desperate for revenue. Executives at companies including Condé Nast, Penske Media, Vox, Hearst, and Time all told Semafor that Apple News+ has come to represent a substantial stream of direct revenue. A spokesperson for Time said that Apple News has become “one of our most important partners and delivers 7-figures of revenue for TIME annually,” adding that the publication garnered 5 million unique visitors from Apple News last month. The revenue and audience numbers have been similar at major Condé Nast publications, including Wired and Vanity Fair. ?(Source: Semafor)

TikTok tests longer, 60-minute video uploads, intensifying its rivalry with YouTube

TikTok is testing a feature that allows select users to upload videos up to an hour long. While there are no immediate plans to make this capability available to everyone, the move signals a significant shift in the platform's content strategy. The platform, known for its short, vertical videos, is now encouraging longer, horizontal videos, similar to YouTube content. TikTok has informed some creators that their videos will get more views if they are horizontal and over 1 minute long, which is now a requirement for monetization.?(Source: TechCrunch)

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