Facebook's loss might be proving to be Google's win. Just as Facebook is tweaking its news feed to weaken the emphasis on news, Google is capitalizing on it by winning a big share of traffic growth that publishers are seeing on their platforms. Sara Fischer, Media Reporter at Axios, was with us to discuss big tech's play on the shifting news industry.
According to new data from Chartbeat, the vast majority of traffic growth publishers are seeing from platforms is now coming from Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). Fischer said this is a big red flag for digital publishers to invest in Google AMP. Traffic to publishers using AMP is up 100% since 2017, according to the data.
The head of its Journalism Project Campbell Brown said twice at Recode's Code Media conference on Monday that they should've been more transparent around experiments and tests. She said going forward, Google, Snapchat, and Twitter should learn from Facebook's experience. The best thing for these companies to do is to communicate goals with publishers, added Fischer.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
Universal Music Group and AI platform Udio have settled a copyright lawsuit and will collaborate on a new music creation and streaming platform. The companies announced on Wednesday that they reached a compensatory legal settlement and new licensing agreements. These agreements aim to provide more revenue opportunities for Universal's artists and songwriters. The rise of AI song generation tools like Udio has disrupted the music streaming industry, leading to accusations from record labels. This deal marks the first since Universal and others sued Udio and Suno last year. Financial terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.
