44% of Readers Say They Use Google to Scan Headlines and Briefs -- Without Linking Through to News Sites
How central a utility is Google in the news world? My new Outsell report, News Users, 2009, indicates it’s the straw the stirs the drink. 44% of Americans — national poll, scientific sample to 3.5% reliability — says they use Google to scan headlines and summaries, without linking off to news sites. That stat has been well-picked-up in the press, and a number of people have raised the questions of how often do they do that, as opposed to linking off to news sites. Well, we know when asked the question of their news reading habits, in relationship to Google, a plurality — the 44% — chose that option. Thirty per cent said they don’t use Google at all for news reading. Twelve percent said they use Google News, then newspaper site search boxes to find more stories. Fourteen percent say they use Google News, go off to the news site, and then come back to Google News to find more links. This one question — as survey questions usually do — isn’t conclusive, but it opens up the Google News/news site behavior — and should soon be joined by other good research.