Google launched the Google News Showcase program last year in eight countries. It’s a product and licensing program that rewards publishers for “bringing their voice and curation” into the company’s news products. Upon launch, it was only available on mobile. The good news for those who prefer reading their news on a bigger screen is that it’s now available on your desktop through news.google.com/showcase. They’re also bringing a few new features to the program, now for desktop and mobile users.
All Google News users will now be able to access the News Showcase and see the enhanced story panels from partners, no matter what device you’re using. As for the desktop version, there are different ways to access this content. You can see the panels on the Top Stories page which is basically the first page that you’ll see when you land on in Google News. You’ll see a new carousel that has the latest panels from both publishers you already follow and those that Google thinks you might be interested in.
You can also explore the various publishers in the program through a News Showcase catalog page that you can access through the left-side navigation. You’ll be able to see content from national title as well as smaller regional and local outlets that may be closer to home. You can also find a News Showcase section on participating publishers’ landing pages within Google News. The desktop features “will happen seamlessly” and the publishers will not have to do any work.
Google is also rolling out a new feature for News Showcase panels. Publishers can now add context to their stories through linked bullet points. Some people may actually just read through those points at times so it’s a good thing to have them rather than nothing. This new feature will roll out on the mobile version of the News Showcase over the next few weeks. For this one, publishers will have to do the work themselves.
Google News Showcase is currently available in eight countries: U.K., Australia, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Czechia and India. They did not mention any plans to expand this program to other countries so we still have to wait and see.
