How GNI Advertising Lab Supports Digital Publishers
Written by: Rashmi
Mid and small-size publishers struggled with the digital divide during the pandemic time. With fewer resources and technology, local publishers found it difficult to cope with big media houses, thereby impacting their way of working.
To bridge this gap, Google came up with an interesting initiative in 2021 – called GNIAdvertising Lab. A part of the Google News Initiative (GNI), this program was launched in India with an aim to support small and mid-sized new organizations.
But what exactly does this program do for digital publishers? Or to ask first, what is GNU advertising lab? We have answered it all in this article. Let's begin with the basics.
What is GNI Advertising Lab?
GNI Advertising Lab is an exclusive program that is designed to support small and medium-sized news organizations that generate original news for local regions in India. The lab follows Google News Initiative's commitment to help independent journalism in thriving at a time when digital is the frontrunner.
As a part of this initiative, Google has committed itself to provide training and support to selected publishers. They will help them improve their digital infrastructure as well as the technical implementations of such resources.
The program opened its application process last year on October 5, 2021. They selected around 800 small to medium new publishers from India for a program wherein they were offered product training and technical implementation support to grow their digital ad revenue.
The selection process was based on various factors, such as the size of the publishing firm and operations duration. For instance, only a publishing house with 2 - 100 full-time employee (FTE) journalists are eligible for application. Each of the applications was reviewed by a combination of the Google Project Team and external consultants to finally select recipients. As of now, the program is at the end stage and will commence on May 31, 2022.
How GNI Advertising Lab Supports Digital Publishers
The process of GNI Advertising Lab is quite simple. The program will focus on training the publishing firms in adapting to digital publishing tools and practices. Here is how it will work:
Improving Digital Infrastructure:
As the name suggests, the GNI advertising lab first focuses on ensuring that every small and mid-sized publisher selected under the program gets better digital infrastructure such as content management systems and websites to improve their functions.
Providing Technical and Product Training:
In addition to improved infrastructure, GNI Advertising Lab also provides training to the selected applicants. The training is directed at learning technical aspects of the digital infrastructure. This includes optimizing the website content and changing ad settings, etc.,
Boosting Ad Revenue:
Another way how GNI Advertising Lab is supporting digital publishers is by helping them increase their ad revenues. By focusing on technical growth, the program can help in growing the organization's digital ad revenues.
Through the month-long program, Google will work on these aspects of 800 publishers and calculate how it impacted their revenue and operations.
The Bottom Line
The ways of journalism have changed a lot. And Google News Initiative has certainly taken huge steps in ensuring that small media players do not stay behind. Its Advertising Lab initiative is just a glimpse of that.
Apart from the Advertising Lab initiative, GNI has also launched several other programs to ensure authoritative and timely journalism. Some other initiatives are GNI Ad Transformation Lab, GNI Innovation Challenge, Google News Lab, Google News Initiative Fellowship, and so on.