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GOOGLE NEWS ADDS PARTICIPANT COMMENTS:
WHAT IT MEANS FOR CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
 
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On August8,Google introduced anew feature within its news servicethatallows participants in storiesto append a commentto the story.
“We'll be trying outa mechanism for publishingcomments from a special subsetof readers:thosepeople or organizations who were actual participantsin the story in question,”explained Dan Meredithand Andy Golding,software engineers on Google’snews team,on the Official Google News Blog.This select“subsetofreaders”(in other words,“participants”) will have the chance to reactto a storyinitially aggregated by Google.“Comments will bepublished in full,withoutany edits,”writes Meredithand Golding,“butmarked as ‘comments’so readersknow it's the individual's perspective,rather thanpartof a journalist's report.”The serviceis currently experimental and onlyavailable in the United States.
 
Google’s new feature is representative of alarger shiftin the media landscape.Many news sites offer readers the oppor-tunity to postcomments in response toan article,butthe Google approach isunique in thatonly story participants canappend their comments to a story listing.Asconsumers shun one-to-one informa-tion sources in favor of many-to-manyparticipatory streams,traditional news outlets,clientorganizations,and even public relationsagencies mustadjusttheir respective avenues of information shaping and sharing.Burson-Marsteller believes thatGoogle’sintroduction of this participatory framework isimportantfor both our agency and our clients.We have been counseling clients to embrace amoreintegrated wayof communicating,andconsistently encouraging them to participatein online dialogue to ensure thatthey have afair shareofvoice.However,as with mostemerging media thereis notastandard setof recommendationsthatapplies to every situation.Nevertheless,Burson-Marsteller believes thattherearenumerous potential benefits for clients whochoose to participate in commenting on news stories aggregated by Google:Published news reports are a one-way communication,forcing involved parties to find alternate means of articulating their pointof view if they disagree with the contentof an article.
Attaching comments to a news article provides an immediate way for participants’to respond and clarifytheir perspective for interested readers.
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Adding a commenttoapublished news reportprovides a mechanism to correctmisinformation “on therecord”resulting in increased awareness of a client’s perspective.
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In an urgentor crisis situation,adding a commentto a news story may be a fastway to engage wheninformation is circulating quickly.
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Participants commenting can add links (as text) to their comment,driving readers to alternate contentsources thatsupportthe participant’s pointof view.
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Comments appended to aggregated news stories become highly searchable contentthatcan helpimproveacompany’ssearch engine rankings.
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Figure 1
represents a news story listing with a commentfromastory participant 
Figure 2
demonstrates how the participants commentappears
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