Google goes Freemium with Google News Archive

Google has announced the launch of its long-awaited premium content service, Google News Archive Search.  Google News Archive, as the name suggests, provides access to an archive of premium news and research content provided by companies such as Factiva, LexisNexis, Alacra, Highbeam Research, the New York Times and others, as well as free (ad-supported) content from Time.com and the Guardian.

Google News Archive Search can be accessed directly at http://news.google.com/archivesearch/.  In addition, Google intends to include archived results along with some search results, but in my initial testing, it appears that feature may not have been launched yet.  In addition to news, Alacra is providing credit, investment and market research from Fitch, CreditSights, Moodys, Investext and others.

The business model is straightforward: content providers can either sell their content pay-per-view or deliver a page with advertising on it.  Google merely indexes the content, not taking any share of the revenue.  At this time, Google is not running ads alongside the news archive.

Google News Archive Search should open up new opportunities for premium content providers to reach new audiences.  Over time, as the content is integrated more closely with Google Search and Google News results, the opportunities should become even greater.

UPDATE:
Jarid Lukin, of Alacra, provides details on the various types of content Alacra has made available through Google News Archive.

Rafat has compiled more snippets and links about the launch.

Mitch Ratcliffe tries some obscure searches (e.g. the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919) with mixed results.

Nick Carr enthusiastically calls it "Arguably the single greatest research tool yet to appear on the web" while Steve Rubel, focusing on the free content wonders what the fuss is about and suggests that Topix.net is better. 

(Note: While I agree that the new Topix site is fantastic, what's unique about Google News Archive is its combination of free and premium content.  The name is a bit of a misnomer, as all types of dated content, such as credit and investment research and market research are also included).