Google is partnering with WordPress to create a low-cost and effective system specifically designed for publishing local news.
In an announcement, Google says it has invested 1.2 million into developing the Newspack platform. Development of Newspack starts in the coming weeks and will be available to publishers worldwide this year.
The main mission of Newspack is to help journalists do more of what they do best – covering news.
Journalists should be writing stories and covering their communities, not worrying about designing websites, configuring CMSs, or building commerce systems. Their publishing platform should deal with these problems.
All plugins created by the WordPress developer community will be accessible for publishers on Newspack. However, Newspack is not being designed to satisfy all requirements of the publishers. Moreover, it’s created to help small publishers write more stories while also adhering to Google’s best practices.
It is trying to help small publishers succeed by creating best practices into the product while removing distractions that may divert scarce resources. We call it “an opinionated CMS:” it knows the right thing to do, even when you don’t.
Newspack by WordPress.com, launched a partnership with News Revenue Hub and Spirited Media. The aim of working together is to understand what makes the publisher successful and to measure the business impact of features and capabilities offered by Newspack.
In fact, Newspack is backed by $2.4 million in funding from some big names, such as Google, through the Google News Initiative that launched last March — Google actually contributed half the funds.
Google’s mission is to advise on the Newspack feature set, based on feedback from local publishers, and offering technical support on the integration of Google products.
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