Google News Initiative has partnered with Automattic Inc., a web development corporation founded in August 2005. It is most notable for WordPress.com, as well as its contributions to WordPress. The company's name is a play on its founder's first name, Matt. Automattic - home to 30 percent of the world's websites - and has invested $1.2 million in its effort to create "Newspack".
The initiative, which is called Newspack by WordPress.com, is launching in partnership with News Revenue Hub and Spirited Media. Interestingly, Newspack is backed by $2.4 million in funding from some big names, including Google, through the Google News Initiative that launched last March — Google actually contributed half the funds. Other contributors include the Lenfest Institute for Journalism ($400,000), ConsenSys ($350,000), and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation ($250,000).
Another as-yet-unnamed source is expected to throw in an additional $200,000 later this month.
This funding will be used to see the project through its first year of operations.
Newspack is a fast, secure, low-cost publishing system tailor-made to the needs of small newsrooms, Google said in a statementon Monday.
The new publishing tool will be made available to publishers globally later in the year.
"Newspapers with long histories have had to cut back on staff and reduce coverage and reporters who try to start new digital publications face an interminable struggle with technical and business problems," said Jim Albrecht, Product Management Director, Google Search.
"Journalists should be writing stories and covering their communities, not worrying about designing websites, configuring CMSs, or building commerce systems."
While Newspack publishers will have access to all the plugins created by the WordPress developer community, the core product is not trying to be all things to all publishers.
"It is trying to help small publishers succeed by building best practices into the product while removing distractions that may divert scarce resources. We like to call it an opinionated CMS -- it knows the right thing to do, even when you don't," explained Albrecht.
Google said it will also advise on the Newspack feature set, based on feedback from its extensive contact with local publishers, and provide technical support on the integration of Google products.
Google News in November launched a new innovation challenge to help scribes and publishers in the Asia-Pacific region produce quality journalism in the digital age.
According to Google, in Asia-Pacific, journalists and publishers are increasingly grappling with questions over how quality journalism can thrive in the digital age.
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