Don't try to compete with Google, says Trinity Mirror Regionals multimedia chief

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Trinity Mirror Regionals' head of multimedia told an industry conference newspapers shouldn't fight Google over editorial content, but use it to their advantage.

Speaking at an Association of Online Publishers forum (AOP), in London yesterday,  Mike Hill told delegates that news sites should prepare to be 'scraped' by news aggregators.

During a Q&A session he was asked if he was concerned about aggregation sites becoming a destination for users to consume news, rather than just being directed to it.

"There's a phrase used at Google: don't fight the internet, and I'd extend that to include Google. I think it would be a pointless thing for us to do, to enter into a battle to stop Google and aggregators putting our content on there," he said.

"At the end of the day, they're directing people to our content."

Similar tactics are employed by other online publications. Mike Seery, chief information officer for the Economist Group, told the forum that the Economist sends content to political bloggers in the US before it's published "so it builds buzz and brings lots of traffic the next day."

Hill added that Trinity Mirror titles are actively using news aggregators to draw in more readers, with news editors sending stories to sites such as Digg and Reddit in a bid to increase page views.

"We see it as an online marketing tool," he added.

To make the most of the increased traffic generated by aggregators and other linking sites, Hill said it must be taken into consideration that aggregators could indirectly kill the need for a homepage on a website.

Hill's comments came in a week when the New York Times announced an end to its subscription service to increase revenue from visitors directed to the site through indirect means, such as search engines and blogs.

"We're not assuming that they [readers] are coming in through the front door," he said.

"So if someone has come to our site via a news aggregator, what are we going to do on that page, around the place that's been aggregated, to keep them on our site and make the most of that marketing opportunity?"

Hill warned, however, that news website's attitudes to Google could change: "There's perhaps another argument there when Google starts putting ads on Google news, and they start monetising our content directly."