There’s been a lot of discussion about Google’s move to host wire service content on Google News instead of linking off to other Web sites. Much of the discussion has focused on decreased traffic to newspaper Web sites from Google News. There’s a bigger threat to online newspapers: Google News presents the content in a much better user experience.

While newspaper Web sites are full of obstacles such as popup ads and registration requirements, Google News is clean and load fasts. The screencast below compares the same news story on three media sites and Google News. A higher resolution screencast is also available (Java required). If you’ve read my previous story, skip ahead until the counter below shows 6:52.

The Google News story experience is simply better. And it’s just the beginning. I expect we’ll soon see Google’s comments from newsmakers rolled into this experience.

Thanks to Sree for the pointer to Screencast-O-Matic.

More on: Google, journalism, newspapers