Tweraser says publishers should view Google as a partner. He adds that Google cares a lot about its relationships with content producers and wants to help users find the content of publishers. “Every piece of content needs to be found,” he says.
Addressing the issue of whether Google has a monopoly, Tweraser notes that there are hundreds of other search engines and in some countries other search engines are stronger than Google: “We are far from being the only player.” He adds that the Internet consists of much more than just journalistic content – people search for products, for example.
Google News gathers content from more than 50,000 publishers and that number continues to rise. On the other hand, he says, Google respects publishers that do not want their content to be found; there is a code they can add to keep their content from being found on Google. “We are very transparent,” he says.
Content is a kind of social currency, Tweraser says. People want to share content. "I don’t think social can exist without content. Social can produce some content, but it also needs content," he says.
Addressing a question from the audience about Panda, which is an algorithm that Google recently added to keep content farms from dominating search results, Tweraser says users have received it very well. “The objective of Panda is to promote original content,” he says.
Noting that in most everything that Google does, alternatives are available, Tweraser says, “We are convinced that competition is essential to drive product innovation.”
Google is a rather young company, he adds. “We are not even a teenager yet. There are things we can do better.
"We are open to explaining our business and if there are concerns, we will address this…The openness that Google has provided about how we work and how we make money is almost nonexistent in the Internet space,” Tweraser says.
It’s really part of Google’s nature to partner, he adds. Android, for example, was built with partnerships. "We are open to partnerships in almost any area of our business.
“Most of all we are focused on developing products that users love,” Tweraser says. “If users don’t love them, then we have failed.”
Looking ahead, Tweraser says both mobile and social are going to be huge and both are going to be major traffic drivers.
Ultimately, Tweraser repeats that publishers should view Google as a partner.
