Google Play Newsstand was a

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...

and digital newsstand service by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. On May 8, 2018, Google announced at

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that Google Play Newsstand was being amalgamated with

Google News Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web. Google rel ...

. Launched in November 2013 through the merger of Google Play Magazines and

Google Currents Google Currents, formerly known as Google+ for G Suite, is software developed by Google for internal enterprise communication. It is one of many products that constitute the Google Workspace line of products. Google Currents is different from ...

, the service let users subscribe to magazines (in select countries) and topical news feeds, receiving new issues and updates automatically. Content was offered for reading on a dedicated Newsstand section of the

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

website or through the mobile apps for Android and

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

. Offline download and reading is supported on the mobile apps. For publishers, Google offers a variety of tools for customization and optimization of their content, as well as the option to include ads through the use of

DoubleClick for Publishers Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the result ...

. Publishers can restrict geographic access to their content, and employ

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for aggregated readership data. Publishers can also offer discounts for Google Play subscriptions if a user is already a subscriber on another platform, such as print or digital.

History

Google Play Newsstand was launched on Android on November 20, 2013, through the merger of Google Play Magazines and

into a single service. The Google Currents app on the iOS platform was redesigned and renamed to Google Play Newsstand on September 23, 2014. A web application for Newsstand was launched on November 16, 2016. The service has seen two major redesigns since its launch in 2013. The first, in October 2014, added elements from the "

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" design language for the release of

Android Lollipop Android Lollipop (code name, codenamed Android L during development) is the fifth major version of the Android (operating system), Android mobile operating system developed by Google and the 12th version of Android, spanning versions between 5.0 ...

. The second, in November 2016, coincided with the launch of the website, and added

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

technologies to better personalize the content to each individual user, including improved news recommendation, and expanded support for interactive, rich media. On May 15, 2018, Google Play Newsstand, along with Google News and Weather were replaced with

, although it wasn't until November 5 that it was phased out completely, removing the Newsstand tab from the Google Play website and the Play Store app. Then in January 2020, magazines were no longer available on Google News, ending all traces of Play Newsstand altogether, except for the website above, which still works even after discontinuation.

Features

Users can subscribe to digital magazines to receive new issues or access to content on an ongoing basis; but, since the replacement of Newsstand with News, users have posted hundreds of negative comments about the change - ranging from the failure to access paid for magazine subscriptions to felling as if they were being force fed topics which were not relevant to them. Many there have been experiencing hundreds of derogatory comments posted by users on News . Subscriptions renew automatically, with the user charged at the start of each subscription period. Users are notified of price increases. Google states that existing subscribers of a print publication may be eligible for a free digital subscription. When users purchase a single issue of a magazine, Google claims that it "won't ask for your name, email address, or mailing address. We may anonymously share your postal/ZIP code with the magazine's publisher." If a user becomes a magazine subscriber, "a publisher will receive your name, address, and email address. A publisher may also receive your reading history in the relevant publication. The publisher may use these in accordance with the publisher's privacy policy." Some magazines offer a trial period. Users can also subscribe to topical feeds of interest, with the service surfacing news sources that interest the user. Google Play Newsstand supports

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

and RePub file formats for magazine content, and

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

feeds for news content.

Platforms

On computers, content can be read on a dedicated Google Play Newsstand section on the Google Play website. On smartphones and tablets, content can be read on the Google Play Newsstand mobile app for the Android and

operating systems. Offline download and reading is supported on the mobile apps.

Newsstand Producer

Google Play Newsstand Producer (formerly Google Currents Producer) is a production environment for content publishers to include their website or blog on Newsstand. It enables publishers to customize the look and feel of their content, and make design decisions that automatically optimize the content so that it can be simultaneously delivered to smartphones and tablets of all sizes and orientations. Publishers can include ads within articles using Google's

. By default, magazines are available to readers worldwide. Publishers can restrict access by either allowing or blocking specific countries. Publishers can also set the primary language for an edition and choose whether they will allow automatic translation. Publishers can use

to analyze aggregated readership data for their content. Publishers can offer discounts for subscriptions on Google Play Newsstand for users who have an existing print or digital subscription for the content. Google will verify the user's existing subscription before providing a discounted price.

Geographic availability

The basic Newsstand service, with topical feeds, is available worldwide. Paid Newsstand content is available in over 35 countries. The full country list includes: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States.

History of expansion

Availability of paid content was introduced in Italy in April 2014, in France and Germany in May 2014, in India, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain in September 2014, in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea in December 2014, in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, and Turkey in March 2015, and in Malaysia and Thailand in September 2015.

References

{{Google Inc. Play Newsstand Android (operating system) software IOS software