#WEFHamburg: Invest in a more human side, Zeit online editor tells Google

Google needs to invest in a more human side to its business to work with news providers and publishers, a leading German newspaper website editor said today.

Speaking at the World Editors' Forum in Hamburg, Wolfgang Blau, editor-in-chief of Die Zeit Online, said the search company needed to invest in "people presses", particularly on YouTube.

"We admire the speed of innovation at Google and the culture of experimentation. The most wonderful challenges in journalism are not of technology anymore but of culture (...) it's not just about putting content on the web or making it for the web, but about leading conversations," said Blau, who spoke in a panel also featuring Telegraph.co.uk editor Marcus Warren and Google's strategic partner development manager Madhav Chinappa.

"We see that we cannot stem the tide behind the huge community on YouTube. It seems that on Youtube (...) Google should invest a little more in the humanoid element."

Blau was referring specifically to the quality of comments left on Die Zeit's videos shared via YouTube's. Comments left on other social sites and communities are of much higher quality and meet the title's principals that the quality of its readership is the next biggest asset after the quality of its content, he said.

"The technological development with YouTube over the last two or three years has been sensation, but I think there's a weak point (...) We know that we are not totally separate from the rest of YouTube, so we think you should put the same investment that you do into other content products," he said.

Blau also called on Google to be more transparent in its operations and to consider appointing a public ombudsman for dealing with relations between publishers, content providers and the company.

Chinnappa, who confessed he has only been working for Google for 45 days having joined from BBC News in August, said his appointment did signal a move by the company to put more focus on its operations in Europe and relationships with media there.

"I think my appointment - you should take it as a good sign. I'm so new to Google and I've come from the news industry (...) you see things in a very interesting way."

Addressing Blau's concerns about YouTube, Chinnappa said it was a question of scale and of YouTube's essence as an open platform and open community.

"Human involvement is sort of incumbent on the publisher as to what human engagement you want to have on YouTube what's the appropriate level of comment for your brand and appropriate level of resource that you put into it. You get out what you put into it. You need to resource it to be able to interact with the community, it's your community," he said.

Chinnappa appointment has been followed by a change in position for former Newsnight editor Peter Barron. Barron, who was Google's UK communications head, will now oversee external relations for Europe, Middle East and Africa, in particular media industry partnerships . Journalism.co.uk understands his new role is part of Google's plans to dedicate more time to working with newspapers, broadcasters and media groups on collaborations and new projects for the web.

Google is already transparent about its products and services, and information about issues such as privacy is readily available online, Barron said. Google also makes detailed instructions available on how publishers can use its tools and tailor them to their needs and brand, he added.

But Google is a technology company and cannot necessarily provide the personal interaction that publishers call for, he said.

"We also need to be honest that there's a scale issue here. There are tens of thousands of publishers within Google news. We can't give personal attention to each of those and neither should we," he said.

"The reality of it is (...) it's very difficult to experiment nimbly with everyone in this room. What I would like to try to do is work with the industry to find out how we can do things in a scaleable way."

Fellow panellist Marcus Warren said that Google's admirable ability to develop new products and to innovate and experiment should be a spur to the news industry to do the same. But he said publishers should be cautious about what kind of relationship they want, as an industry, with Google.

"We expect content to be produced in a timely relevant fashion. We're not just business at usual, we're trying to innovate at our humble level as Google is doing," he said.

"The vision that newspaper editors are the only publishers and purveyors of quality is 15 years old. We have to be realistic, publishers include the BBC, all the other media outlets, and tens of thousands of other purveyors of content. Is it a good thing for publishers like ourselves in the long-run to be part of a relationship that shuts people out?"

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