Agregators just give everyone high up services

It was the domain of executives that had minions look through the media and deliver to them the reports that were of interest to them. We've got such people here ... they are called the Press Office, and support our executive team.

Agregator services simply do the same for the common person; allowing someone to read the news that is relevent to them, rather than having to buy in to the brand or politics of a particular rag.

And to be brutally honest about it, the more I land at a particular news outlet, the more I am likely to actually become a regular reader ... the agregators act as a sort of dating agency for content against interest.

Time is Short

I haven't got time to read through the daily output of a newspaper, so I rely on others passing me links to relevant stories. As such, the paper is getting some of my time, whereas if I didn't get to see the relevant links then they wouldn't get any of it.

Drudge

There was an article a couple of months ago about how some UK newspaper sites had jumped up in popularity thanks to links on the Drudge Report.

When I follow a link to a news or newspaper site I check the sidebar for other stories. So a single link may have me reading a number of articles there.

Aggregation shows the man behind the curtain

If you look at news aggregation sites (and news.google.co.uk is very good at illustrating this), you notice that all the newspapers are covering the same news stories, and with very similar language and quotes. That's because they're all taking the same news feeds (mainly from PA here in the UK; AP, Reuters, and others are also seen) and rewriting them with their own 'voice' (or sometimes not bothering even to do that.)

So, all the newspapers really have to offer, that they could legitimately charge readers for, are their columnists - their commentators and opinionists. Oh dear (and how is that working out for The Independent, or the Wall Street Journal?)

(But you can begin to understand why AP were getting shirty about Google's aggregation of what they consider their stories. Except the press agencies are, a lot of the time, rewriting press releases from governments, NGOs, and companies. So they've not contributed all that much either, and we have bloggers now to rewrite others' publicity stories/stunts for free!)

RE: Google News

That has been done as well. Some NZ news site, if I remember correctly. Also, Perfect 10 magazine famously took legal action to stop Google from using their thumbnails in image searches - hilarious really. I don't know whether anybody ever got through to them that erasing yourself from Google results is about the *worst* possible thing you can do for your business!

Question

Why is newsnow.co.uk the UK's "#1" news provider and not the UK's "Number 1" news provider?

If its charges others to takes its feeds (see subscription services) then surely it shouldn't be surprised that someone else would want to charge it for the materials it takes. Or would paying for raw material hurt its bottom line too much?