News Corp, whose founder Rupert Murdoch has for some time been railing at freely available online news has now announced that it will be teaming up with Microsoft in its fight against free news providers, specifically Google.
How this is going to pan out is that “little piece of code in each article would make articles from News Corp publications such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Post and several international titles visible only to search engines that pay”. Microsoft has been very quick to agree to pay for such.
The win for both parties is very obvious here, Murdoch gets revenue for his online content (something which will no doubt help recoup some of the losses he’s making with the traditional fish and chip wrapper business) and Microsoft gets increased traffic to its search engine with, of course the hope that they can then try and keep those users returning to their search engine and become their default if only for the sake of convenience.
Of course the big gamble Murdoch is taking here is that people will identify strongly enough with his media outlet brands to want to seek them out specifically as opposed to taking the news they want from whatever source they get it from. Or to put it simply, Murdoch is betting that users will look for the news as delivered by the likes of The Times and The Sun, as opposed to typing in their subject of interest into Google as is the current norm.
Also he is assuming that other large media houses will follow suit, which could be the clincher. If there is news available for free, then there’d be absolutely no incentive for Google or other portals to line up to pay media’s Father Scrooge for his content.
It could work, assuming his guess is correct. I personally expect it to be no more than a moderate success at best. The biggest driver for growth online is the proliferation of freely available information. It is the very spirit that drives the growth and innovation of the web and any attempt by a man perceived to be the Scrooge of the media could very well face a strong consumer backlash.
Murdoch though is a wily old fox, I can imagine he is planning to introduce a whole lot of value-added stuff, like exclusive content, insights and views by respected subject matter authorities. But, is the market for that big enough? I’m not sure. What I do know is that this type of action goes against the face of innovation, surely there are ways to profit from online news without such restrictive measures.
won’t work… most of the news we read on the web is replicated a thousand times on a thousand different sites… whatever murdoch publishes is going to be republished somewhere else for free…
Well put -nice article.
We were beginning to forget that we actually hate Microsoft – with all what Melinda Gates is doing around world.
I sincerely hope it doesn’t succeed. If the “old guard” of industry figure out ways to mine profit out of the internet it won’t be long before they get their pal legislators to instigate “regulations”, for the betterment of society of course.
The internet is the only functioning, true model of a free market we have in this world. It’s been so successful it’s transformed the lives of millions of people on every continent, enhancing free speech and free interaction between people. Heck, most consumers get premium services online for free. The last thing we need is the sticky fingers of government churning the great punchbowl that is the web.
Mudorch needs to have himself a nice holiday on the Carribean and leave the work to the experts who still have the energy and the passion.
Who wants to read Newscorp’s biased news anyway?
Today we can all access the news we want to read – whenever and how we want.
I must admit I still prefer my daily news in the fish-and-chips wrapper (or light-the -fire, and so many other uses) format – with a cup of coffee; and will definitely not pay to read it on-line.
Rupert Murdoch has always liked to be in control of the media – ask any Australian prime minister who may have dared to cross or ignore him – but lately he seems to be grasping at any possible straw to hang onto that perceived power. Missing the boat most of the time (e.g. My Space; internet in China etc)
I agree that he should just retire. Although he seems to be placing his bets on living as long as his humble, inspiring and much respected mother (Dame Elizabeth turned 100 this year).
Nail right on the head!…I dont thik its gonna work…ppl are interested in news, subject matter not necessarily the source of those news…in that case than we might as well go back to reading hardcopy newspapers cos then we’ll be paying for the newspaper brand and not necessarily the news.
After all, that’s what’s he’s promoting his brands not the news…
It’s a brave move. He owns the content, so of course, he has the right to distribute it as he sees fit. Google is profiting off ‘free’ distribution of content created by 3rd parties.