Finally This Revenue Sharing Deal Makes Sense
A few days ago, it was reported that Google and Reed Elsevier came to a deal to share revenues on traffic sent to his site. The Guardian reported the story, but the article by James Robinson succeeds in confusing the issue. PaidContent.org finally clears up the issue. Basically, Google is expanding Google Print, it's search engine of offline (magazine) content. Now, a search engine would be competition for a medical journal, since scientists rely on the sales of medical journals to help pay the bills. Google's solution, as it has always been, is to share the revenues from Google print with the content providers, meaning they gain money from including their content in Google Print and not just posting it on the web. Everybody wins. Oh, and while the Guardian makes the point that Elsevier "could come to similar agreements with Yahoo and Microsoft", I don't see how, since Yahoo and MS don't have similar projects.
(via Findory > Open Access News)

- posted by Nathan Weinberg @ 9/23/2004 08:59:00 AM