Naviknula sam da ujutro kad se probudim i pijem prvu kavu lagano surfam internetom. Najprije pregledam domaće news portale, a onda i strane. Valjda sam profesionalno deformirana pa mi odmah čim otvorim oči treba određena doza informacija kako bih uopće mogla funkcionirati. Moram znati što se događa i onda tako dobro informirana krećem u nove radne pobjede.

Upravo zbog tih mojih rituala koje sasvim sigurno njeguju i mnogobrojni ljudi diljem svijeta, prilično me pogodila informacija da bi se sadržaj na internetu mogao naplaćivati. Molim?! Kako to mislite?! Zašto?! Ništa se još točno ne zna, ali moje dosadašnje iskustvo mi govori da gdje ima dima, ima i vatre.

Cijela priča krenula je od Ruperta Murdocha, osnivača News Corpa, koji je najavio da će njegova kompanija najvjerojatnije ukloniti svoje sadržaje s Googlea i uvesti tzv. paywallse. Ljute ga što mu svi kradu sadržaj, a on na tome ne zarađuje.

Murdochove izjave izazvale su burne reakcije javnosti. I dok mu neki pružaju podršku jer i sami muku muče sa zaradom od sadržaja koji stvaraju i plasiraju na interent, drugi su šokirani i ne žele ni čuti za to. Ja definitivno ulazim u ovu drugu skupinu jer smatram da ne možeš ljudima toliko dugo vremena davati besplatni sadržaj, a onda im to doslovno oteti.

Ipak, kad se stavim u drugu poziciju shvaćam Murdochovu logiku. To je biznis od kojega, naravno, želiš zaraditi. Oglasi nisu dovoljni za pokrivanje troškova pa moraš naći drugi izvor prihoda. Logično se nameće zaključak da ćeš početi naplaćivati sadržaj koji proizvodiš. Ako želiš čitati i gledati – plati!

No, je li to rješenje?  Malo sam zadnjih dana surfala i čitala blogove američkih medijskih stručnjaka. Oni se ne slažu s Murdochovim najavama, a Clay Shirky apelira na medijske mogule da ne grade zidove oko javnog dobra. Da, sadržaj na internetu je definitivno postao javno dobro i njegova vrijednost krije se upravo u dostupnosti toga sadržaja i njegovu dijeljenju putem social media poput Facebooka i Twittera.

Opće je poznato da još uvijek nisu pronađeni održivi poslovni modeli za digitalne medije. Ipak, mislim da uvođenje pretplate nije rješenje. Nekako se nadam da će pametne glave velikih medijskih korporacija još malo razmisliti i doći do rješenja koje će zadovoljiti njihove poslovne apetite, a da nam pritom neće oteti javno dobro. Nikako si ne mogu zamisliti da mi netko naplati moj jutarnji ritual…

I was intrigued by Paul Carr’s take on the News Corp/Bing/Google story in TechCrunch today. In particular I enjoyed the closing remarks…

“And that’s where we see Murdoch’s real genius: he has managed to use his illusion of influence to get all of these benefits without having to commit himself to anything, or expose himself in any way.”

I found myself asking the question: If this then is all an illusion why is the illusion so transparent? and, once again, Why all this effort chasing yesterday’s dream?

As you probably know we’ve spent the past two weeks looking at why the Mobile Web and the New Plastic Fantastic are not going to be the solutions to the current problems facing the Newspapers, TV and Magazine Industries.

In the end we discovered that the biggest losers so far in the Mobile Web market have made the mistake of thinking that content was the hook to build a successful MNVO business.

The New York Times and News Corp may have enormous online traffic but they do not have the relationship intimacy with their customers that is a prerequisite for a sustainable and profitable MVNO business.

When I put together these earlier posts I had forgotten completely that NewsCorp had already been down the MVNO path here in Australia.

It happen almost a decade ago, it was with a company called One.Tel.

 

News Corp lost half a billion Australian dollars investing in One.Tel. (See One.Tel…one big debacle and Murdoch speaks on One.Tel collapse (ABC)).

NewsCorp’s One.Tel legacy reemerged earlier this month when the national broadcaster (ABC) reported that the (media) Moguls face $232m claim after One.Tel ruling. The Daily Telegraph also announced that the One.Tel saga is not over for James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch

Meanwhile The Age in Melbourne reported that the One.Tel liquidator was getting ready for trial as it prepares to try and recover the $132 million rights issue by One.Tel that was to be partially underwritten by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd.

One of the most interesting things about the One.Tel saga has been the paths taken by James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch since its demise. Packer has gone on to sell down his shareholdings in Australia’s richest media empire to pursue business interests in the gaming industry. While Murdoch resigned his position as a senior executive with his father’s News Corporation (See SMH I’m back: Lachlan Murdoch’s $3.3b deal with Packer).

The One.Tel Saga and The Google Saga are different parts of the same story. They are about News Corp’s ongoing search for a new media business model within the increasingly competitive Mobile Convergence landscape.

The Packer Murdoch investment in One.Tel over a decade ago was like much of James Packer’s new media plays at the time: Visionary.

With the aid of advisors like Microsoft’s Daniel Petrie, James Packer reshaped the future of landscape of Australian Media only to later turn his back on the media empire his family had built over two generations. (See Will the Son Also Rise, James Packer the businessman and Paul Barry on James Packer ABC).

The paths of the Packers and the Murdochs post One.Tel are also different parts of the same MobCon story. So it will be interesting to see in 10 – 15 years time who has played the best hand from the cards they were dealt in 2001.  Will it be those who have chosen to stay and play on at the media table or those who have cashed in their chips early?

Previous Posts on the Murdoch Google Story

• If Rupert Murdoch does build a Pay Wall will anyone want to play in his garden?
• While Google and Apple sail off into the sunset, News Corp and Microsoft walk hand in hand down the boulevard of broken dreams.
• More speculation on what life may be like on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• The OPEC of Online News?
• News junkie or the future of journalism?
• The Business of Blogging

Previous Posts of the Mobile Web

• Are your customers packing the new plastic?
• Imagine all the people, living a Mobile Life
• Point, click and discover the future of advertising?
• Media Platform or Fashion Statement?
• More Eyeballs and More Revenues but is it the future of the mass media?
• The five emerging business models of the Mobile Web

After 24 Years of a Fascist Leaning Government, Can Business Ignore a non-Fascist Leaning Government?

America has lived under the control of the fascist-leaning neocons for 24 years. During that time business enjoyed much “leeway”. Business saw 11,000 control tower workers fired and told not to come back. Business saw labor loose the positive tracking of wages and productivity. Business had the gall to suggest that the minimum wage increase, won by workers after many years of trying – be taken out of the workers tips. Essentially, the minimum wage workers would then be paying for their own “wage increase”.

But wait … there may be more coming. A “dying business” may be able to ally with a live robust  business to kill-off its business competition while government plays a passive role of observer. Who “woulda thunk” that the death of the word “monopoly” would advance business to such “lofty heights”?

The concept of business monopoly is dead. Business can now get as BIG as it likes. And diversification does not have to be an ingredient in business ventures  unless the shrewd business types wants it to be. Since monopoly is dead, business types are free to corner the market in anything they want to – including newspapers.

Newspaper readers have passed judgment on the quality of news content. And readers don’t seem to think much of the quality of news content anymore. Newspapers today are highly political – perhaps that’s because the neocons “needed fer” to back away from the liberal press. And back away they did.

Here is hoping that Microsoft does not align itself with those whose politics are “worn on their shirtsleeves”. Here is hoping that Microsoft stays out of the right wing politics of the neocons and their TELL AMERICA news sources. In today’s world you don’t corner the news-market if you don’t have a political message. Microsoft should keep its name out of politics as it competes with Goggle.

The idea of being a Microsoft customer should not imply that you are supportive of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. News Corp. made its bed – why should Microsoft sleep in it? Perhaps Mr. Murdoch mis-understood Microsoft’s use of the word “KILL” in reference to competition.  Even FOX News should live and die on its own “merits”.

Microsoft’s need to beat Google and Rupert Murdoch’s desire to help newspapers survive could lead to an online news ice age

PCMAG

By Lance Ulanoff

News Corp. is shooting itself in the foot, and now Microsoft may be helping to aim the gun. Today, under the category of strange bedfellows, we have the story of Microsoft possibly offering to help delist News Corp. content and sites, such as The Wall Street Journal from Google’s search index. Doing so will, as I understand it, pull the content not only from the Google index, but search results and Google News as well. This, as Rupert Murdoch sees it, is progress.

For months, Murdoch has been telling anyone who will listen that Google News and other aggregation sites are going beyond the Fair Use Doctrine. His plan, already well under way, is to gate content—like The Wall Street Journal—and only allow paying subscribers to read the stories online (it’s actually been this way for a while, but until recently, you could get around the gate by searching for WSJ stories in Google News). I understand the desire, if not the act, of gating content—especially in today’s print-snuffing economy. However, Murdoch and Microsoft’s latest plan—if true—makes no sense at all. …

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2356245,00.asp

 

The internet has had a huge impact on the way people consume news. Sales of newspapers have gone down, looking at the dailies, in September 2001 the Times newspaper had a circulation of 701,387 but in September 2009 it was down to 638,033. People using the internet instead of buying newspapers is one of the reasons for this. Some people think that the internet is bad for the journalism industry, I am not so sure. It’s just another development in technology. We have to move with the times.

I think it is a problem for people working in the journalism industry that people aren’t having to pay for their news when they get it from the internet. However it is still a useful facility for the public. Anybody can access newspaper websites like the Guardian and the Times online. Saying this, it seems like Rupert Murdoch is going to stop such easy access to news content from his numerous newspapers, including the Sun and the Times, by linking up with Microsoft so that Google and other large web companies cannot take content from his News Corp outlets. I saw an article about this by Richard Wray on the Guardian website on Monday called ‘News Corp considers a tie-up with Microsoft against Google’. If Murdoch does decide to team up with Microsoft and its Bing search engine it will have a considerable impact as Google News currently brings the most people to Murdoch’s online newspapers such as timesonline.co.uk.

If the plans are followed through they will bring a change to the journalism industry as Murdoch owns a significant proportion of Britain’s press. The majority of people use Google as a search engine so the numbers viewing the content of his News Corp outlets will decrease. Not only will numbers decrease but the people who do access Murdoch’s online newspapers for news may have to pay as he wants to put paywalls on newspapers like the Times. I don’t think this is fair as he would be putting barriers up, stopping people accessing the news. In this day and age it is not as common for someone to go and buy a paper everyday, that is why people need the online newspaper facility. I think Murdoch is just showing the true ‘media mogul’ in him as he is currently not making money from the content on his online newspapers.

Rupert Murdoch is a prime example of a ‘media mogul’ who has a vast investment in the newspaper business. Murdoch understands that the threat websites such as Google, pose to his company, News Corporation. It is as a result Murdoch is fighting to sign a deal with Microsoft Corp, that will allow him to prevent Google copying content from his newspapers websites. With the ever decreasing sales of newspapers, Murdoch is simply planning a safety plan for his firm. “Murdoch is considering removing News Corp’s news from Google’s Web search results, and is talking to Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) about listing the stories with its Bing search engine instead. Microsoft would pay for the privilege, sources have told Reuters, but it was not clear how much.”

Murdoch is considering removing News Corp’s news from Google’s Web search results, and is talking to Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) about listing the stories with its Bing search engine instead. Microsoft would pay for the privilege, sources have told Reuters, but it was not clear how much.In my opinion, this is a positive for journalists and marks the beginning of the press fighting technological advances. Reading the article from The Independent, it is notable that although Murdoch has the best intentions to keep newspapers alive, it will not be sustainable forever.I think that there is a problem in people not paying for their news content as it is these sales that pay journalists wages.

If this plan goes ahead, I believe that huge changes will be seen within the industry as News Corp holds significant shares of the newspaper industry. However, the idea of paying for online news content may not appeal to a lot of people, so they may find a free alternative. The concept of buying newspapers is a dying habit and therefore we may see a change in those willing to pay for online content. Overall, I think Murdoch can make this work to the benefit of journalists and the press, and hopefully, it will give a ray of hope to all us budding journalists.

Microsoft is reportedly discussing a deal that would see News Corporation remove its Web sites, such as the Wall Street Journal, from Google’s index. The effect “de-indexing” would be that News Corporation content would not be available via Google Search or Google News. It would be available to Bing users, however. Find out more about this deal, here.

C’est bien ce que pourrait engendrer l’attaque de Microsoft et de News Corp. à l’encontre de Google. En effet, le Financial Times a annoncé que News Corp. proposerait à Microsoft de le payer pour le déréférencer du moteur de recherche Google. Rupert Murdoch avait déjà menacé de bloquer l’accès de ses contenus aux moteurs de recherche dont Google News, leur reprochant de “prendre tout ce qui les intéresse, de voler nos informations, nous affirmons qu’ils volent nos informations car ils se servent sans payer”. Au début du mois News Corp. avait aussi annoncé qu’il comptait rendre payantes les éditions internet de ses journaux, parmi lesquels figurent notamment le New York Post aux Etats-Unis ainsi que le Times et le Sun en Grande-Bretagne.

De son coté, Microsoft aurait commencé à contacter d’autres grandes maisons d’édition afin de les convaincre de se déréférencer de  Google. Ce qui apporterait une grande valeur aux contenus de ses maisons si les moteurs de recherche sont prêts à les payer pour les référencer. Le secteur de la presse, qui peine à rentabiliser ses activités internet, pourrait sortir gagnant de cet affrontement.

L’objectif de Microsoft n’est pas pour autant de sauver la presse mais surtout de s’attaquer au modèle économique de Google afin de réduire les marges impressionnantes que génère celui-ci (en 2008, le groupe a dégagé 29,7% de marge brute et plus de 19% de marge nette). L’efficacité de cette stratégie dépend en grande partie, du nombre d’éditeurs qui suivront News Corp. dans sa démarche mais aussi du nombre d’internautes qui migreront sur Bing, le moteur de recherche de Microsoft.

Notons cependant que la rentabilité de Google ne se fait pas principalement avec les sites d’information comme le souligne la direction de Google “Economiquement, ça ne représente pas une grosse partie de la façon dont nous gagnons de l’argent”, en évoquant le sujet de la valeur ajoutée apportée par le référencement des articles de presse. En effet, la rentabilité de Google provient en majorité du pourcentage des recettes publicitaires qu’il reverse aux sites web partenaires appelé le « cout d’acquisition du trafic » (ce coût représentait 5,9 milliards de dollars, soit 28% du chiffre d’affaires de Google en 2008.). De plus, le moteur de recherche n°1 souligne que tout journal est libre de ne plus apparaître sur Google Actualités ni même, s’il le souhaite, dans le répertoire général du moteur de recherche. Cependant, il rappelle également qu’il envoie 100.000 internautes par minute vers les sites d’information. Qui voudrait s’en priver ?

L’unique site qui a réussi jusqu’à maintenant à se faire payer pour donner accès à son contenu c’est Twitter, grâce à l’exclusivité que représente ses tweets. Or, ce qui marche pour Twitter ne marche pas forcément pour les sites d’information puisqu’une information exclusive a une durée de vie de 30 secondes sur le web, souligne TechCrunch. Cela remet donc en partie en cause l’efficacité de la stratégie de Microsoft.

Attendons désormais de connaître la réponse de Google, qui représentera un grand changement du web si celui-ci refuse de payer pour publier le contenu des sites d’information de Rupert Murdoch. Cependant, est ce qu’un déréférencement de Google empêchera vraiment une information de ne pas retomber dans les résultats de recherche de celui-ci ?

Microsoft ferait mieux de se concentrer sur la qualité de ces résultats de recherche pour combattre son concurrent plutôt que de payer des sites afin de réduire le contenu de Google.

Sources : e24.fr ; france-info.com

I doubt Rupert Murdoch was the first big media guy to think of a way to turn the tables on Google. At Time Inc., this idea has been kicking around for over four months…

Kara Swisher does an excellent job today of parsing the various scenarios that flow from Rupert Murdoch’s threat to de-list the Wall Street Journal and the rest of News Corp,’s holdings from Google’s search engine. (What a high wire act: Married to a Google muckety-muck on the one hand, and employed by Murdoch on the other, Swisher still comes off as objective and well reasoned.)

I’ve been watching the whole Murdoch move with equal parts fascination and envy. That’s because back on July 22, at the Fortune Brainstorm Conference, one of my co-workers high up on the business side of Time Inc. ovulated the same brilliant idea. (I am not naming him here because I don’t have his permission.) “We know exactly how much traffic Google refers to us, and down to the penny what it’s worth,” my pal told me at lunch that day. “We could go to Microsoft and see if they’ll guarantee us more if we keep Google from searching us.” I thought it was one of the smartest schemes I had ever heard, but pointed out that it could get expensive for Microsoft fast since it would start a bidding war among big content producers. Why would they open the door to something so potentially expensive to them in the long run? My friend pooh-poohed me.

The more I thought about it, the more I agreed. We’re talking about chump change for Microsoft. Figure $100 million or so for bragging rights to some of the biggest content libraries in the world? That’ll turbo-charge Bing big time.

Needless to say, as far as I know—and note that I’m not privy to the top-floor discussions anyway—my friend’s idea hasn’t gotten anywhere at Time Inc. So far, anyway.

But guaranteed, if Microsoft starts writing checks, it’ll be a somewhat happier holiday season for big media companies.

A couple of days ago, the Financial Times reported that News Corp might strike a deal with Microsoft and de-index its news websites from Google.  I’m in the news business myself (as a programmer-journalist with two #1 paid iPhone (news) apps) and I’m also an avid consumer (who has a daily subscription to two (printed) newspapers and reads several news websites). From that perspective, I think that this is an interesting business plan, but that it will inconvenience some search-engine users.

I’m not sure how effectively the proposed plan will help News Corp’s goal of creating a “market place for digital journalism”. However, some of the reactions to this news were over the top. As an example, there was a call to boycott Bing and News Corp (I found out about it through a retweet that went to more than a 100,000 people). Several others have been critical of the plan and suggested that News Corp’s move goes against the “share with each other” culture of the internet and that News Corp is trying to control the flow of news and that it is wrong for News Corp and Microsoft to negotiate a pact that restricts access to news.

While the marginal costs of distributing news over the internet to an individual user are low (and somewhat close to zero), the costs of setting up and running a news organization are not zero (especially if you’re going to investigate corruption in Washington or report on atrocities in Congo or the war in Afghanisthan). So it seems fair to stipulate that journalists and publishers should be compensated for their work and that producers aren’t required to provide “free” services to consumers.

Then the question becomes one of how the news industry should make money online. Many critics would say that the news should be available “free” to consumers and that a third party (“advertisers”) should pay the producers. I think this is a good business model for many news websites. As an example, one of our company’s proposed product plans is to build a mobile-news platform that newspapers can use to publish their news on the iPhone (and other mobile devices). The free-with-ads model will be best suited for most newspapers who wish to use our platform.

However, the critics are wrong in asserting that free-with-ads should be the only revenue model for news publishers. From a business standpoint, Christoper Kimball (in a recent op-ed ) made the case for a 100% subscriber-financed model by pointing to the demise of Gourmet and the success of Cook’s. It is perfectly legitimate for news publishers to offer services with a paywall through a website. It is equally legitimate for a news publisher to choose one particular search engine as their search-distribution-channel  and get payments through that distribution channel.  

Critics can still make the argument that (because of the abundance of news content) a NewsCorp/Bing partnership will harm News Corp by reducing its page-views and its ad-revenues. However, News Corp is obviously better placed to decide whether or not increased revenues from the Bing partnership outweigh the impact of reduced ad revenues. They can also consider whether or not a paid-website (getting money directly from users) is better than both the free-with-ads model and the exclusive-search-engine model. Attempting to coerce news organizations into adopting a ad-based revenue model by calling for a boycott isn’t right.

Critics can also question how effective the “de-indexing” will be and whether search engines will find other ways to link to this content (e.g. though a third party website that links to individual WSJ news items).

Critics can make the argument that a Bing/NewsCorp partnership may set a precendent and that other news organizations may also close their content to some search engines. I’m sympathetic to this argument and believe that news consumers will be inconvenienced by not having a single index or search engine for the web. However, I also recognize that there is no such thing as a free lunch and I would rather have quality newspapers survive than have a single web index without quality newspapers. If critics believe in the abundance of content and see news as a commodity, they shouldn’t really be concerned about the inability to find some of this content through a search engine.

There are far more serious issues around search engines and around search news organizations. As an example, major search engines (Google, Bing. Yahoo etc.) have all agreed to obey the Chinese government and censor search results on a wide range of topics ranging from Tibet to Tiannamen Square. A few years ago, they all defended it on the grounds that obeying the Chinese government was the only way for them to operate in China and that operating in China was more important than principles against censoring news. Very few people hold the search engines to account on the censoring. A few months ago, the Washington Post got into trouble over its plan to sell access to its journalists and to administration officials for $25K-$250K. Ironically, a health-care lobbyist felt that it was incorrect for the Washington Post to sell access to its “Health-care reporting and editorial staff members” and reported it to other media outlets. Shortly thereafter, Marcus Brauchli (executive editor at the Post) released a memo stating that their news-division was unaware of the dinner “flyer” and that the language in the Post’s flyer precluded their participation because “Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable”. Ultimately, the Washington Post had to cancel that particular dinner, but questions around conflict-of-interests exist for many news organizations.

There are real issues around ethics that we need to watch for in search engines and in news organizations. Search-engine exclusivity isn’t in the same league as those issues. I recognize that this is an unpopular position, but I’ll say that that it is a legitimate business plan for news organizations (though I’m not sure how effective it will be). The news industry and its consumers will be better off if we focus on real,critical issues and not on issuing calls to boycott news organizations because of revenue-plans around search-engine exclusivity.

Which was one should expect. But I don’t think the Big G is scared:

‘Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.

‘The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.’ -Financial Times

Here’s an excellent commentary from Wolff:
Murdoch and Microsoft: The Mice Are Trying to Roar
by Michael Wolff -Vanity Fair

By Virginia McMillan

I CAN’T say that I want Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Microsoft to force me to make Bing a regular part of internet life. Is this the best the two giants can come up with to get reach and revenue?

I searched for NewsWire on Google (New Zealand) and it was the top-ranked site; Bing couldn’t find us in its first 20 returns… It’s not the only “fail” I’ve had using Bing.

I am amazed that Murdoch appears to consider his media empire can do without Google. The strategy, explained here by columnist Dan Kennedy  in The Guardian, goes against the inherent chaos of the internet and Google’s excellence at navigating its (almost) entirety.

Perhaps free, easily searchable content is the wrong model for mass media (and I am not so sure about that). But even then, it doesn’t mean making the content harder to find is the right model.

Then again, I might be struck down by lightning, and Bing might overwhelm Google in popularity in the next few years.  Stranger things have happened.

“Rupert Murduch: um gênio dos negócios, ou mais um empresário prestes a cometer uma catástrofe?” A resposta para essa dúvida poderá levar menos tempo do que se pode imaginar. Dias atrás escrevi sobre os planos de um dos donos da informação em todo o mundo, Rupert Murdoch (foto abaixo), o homem que está por trás da News Corporation, e a possibilidade de uma eventual cobrança, por toda a notícia que seus veículos publicam na internet.

Quando Murdoch afirmou que um de seus planos era desvincular das buscas do Google todo e qualquer tipo de informação sobre o que seus jornais e outros meios de comunicação produzem diariamente, muita gente acreditou, e ainda acredita, que estava assinando a sua falência.

Um dos principais motivos para muitos afirmarem que Murdoch estava cometendo uma loucura, ao retirar seus conteúdos da máquina de busca mais utilizada no mundo, é que é justamente essa ferramenta que gera grande parte das consultas constantes aos seus portais.

No entanto a última desse lobo dos negócios deixa claro um dos motivos pelo qual conseguiu ser o dono de um império em tão pouco tempo. Afinal quem ouviu ele dizer que estaria se excluindo dos mecanismos de busca? Até o que li sobre o assunto o único mencionado é o buscador e agregadores da Google.

Agora que todos os holofotes se dirigem a ele, Murdoch mostra o que realmente quer fazer. Segundo informações que rolam nos bastidores, News Corp e Microsoft pretendem unir-se, tornando o desacreditado Bing único indexador dos conteúdos de jornais, como o The New York Times. Em troca de tanta “gentileza” a Microsoft pagaria pelo conteúdo dos jornais. Tal notícia já está nos principais portais do globo, como CNN.com, ABC.es e El País.

Não é a primeira união que vejo contra a Google. Tempos atrás a mesma Microsoft uniu forças com o Yahoo, contra o poderoso “G”. Pois é, os tempos são outros e em busca de novos horizontes, procurar forças em solo inimigo, se torna uma necessidade de sobrevivência.

Artigo relacionado: “Declaração de Hamburgo ou Rupert Murdoch? Quem é mais polêmico?”

Follow up to my post on the search-engine exclusive (which was linked to by AtlanticMonthly) … other interesting commentary:

From Gizmodo, another reminder about Microsoft’s past:

This is the Microsoft we know from the last century, before great underdog products like Xbox and Zune. This is from a company who’s CEO recently told us that sales are more important than critical acclaim, preferring profit over better product. And this is a company that gets in its anticompetitive digs when it can: For example, in Internet Explorer, it’s really hard to set Google as your default browser, not being listed in the alternative choices to Bing. Yet, in Google Chrome, it’s easy to set Bing as the default search. [...]

People, I’m telling you, this is bad news. People talk about net neutrality like it’s only about the data’s prioritization over the pipes. But what good is equivalence in data speed and prioritization if you can’t find it in the first place?

From eCommerce Times, on the gamble this is re traffic:

“If you’re giving up a big percentage of potential exposure to your existing or potential customer base, can you make up for that somehow? That’s like canceling your ads on the Super Bowl. There’s more potential detriment here to News Corp.”

From TechDirt, on the flawed vision:

But the key thing is that none of this does anything to help users. And that’s the problem. It’s not adding even the tiniest sliver of additional benefit to users. And these days, that’s a strategic error. If your business is focused on making life more difficult for a competitor, rather than adding more value to users, you’re doing the wrong thing.

From BoingBoing (Rob Beschizza, not Cory) on just how much Steve Ballmer may hate Google:

But there’s one gamble which does make some twisted sense: that Microsoft is an irrational consumer. It’s easy to believe that it may spew senseless riches into publishers’ pockets, radically distorting the news market, just to spite Google.

From the NZ Herald, a summary of the emotions coloring this announcement (the myth of rationality, front and center):

NewsCorp is furious that Google pays it not a dime for the content it skims from its global publishing empire, while Microsoft is fed up with seeing its own search engine service, relaunched earlier this year as Bing, so comprehensively outgunned.

From Hitwise, more data (emphasis added)

As of last week, WSJ.com’s referred and non-referred traffic from Google and Google News amounted to 15.3% and 11.0% respectively.  [...] The potential loss of Google News traffic is potentially more serious. As reported here, over the three years, WSJ.com’s traffic from Google News has grown from 2% to over 11%. As we see in the table below, the Journal is receiving more than double the traffic from Google News than newspaper sites overall (a custom category including national and regional papers). Bing, a potential News Corp. suitor for search exclusivity provides less than half of Google News’ volume as of last week.

Microsoft is hoping to strike the Google goliath with some sort of David stone by making News Corp content invisible to Google searches. Fantastic.

Microsoft (maybe) plans to monetize search engine results by giving Rupert Murdoch money if he agrees to block News Corp content from Google search results. Microsoft’s plan seems pretty clever. Until you spend thirty seconds thinking about it a little more.  Then, the logic is as fuzzy and backward as you would expect from Ballmer and Co.

If people like something, when they find something that makes them feel good, they flock to it.  They use it or buy it, they love it, they enjoy it, they tell their friends.  When the product or music or fashion or culture gets too popular, they go find or invent something else. Its pretty simple.

Real Hip-Hop culture today doesn’t look exactly like it did in the mid 80s and early 90s when it was the fucking coolest thing ever.  But, today it also has nothing to do with Lil’ Wayne or the Stanky Legg dance. This cycle doesn’t have a name that I know of, but I’m cooking one up as I write this (and drink beer, two at least).  While it may not have a name yet, it’s a concept that is a no brainer for those of us who spend any time with other people – which is why I’m starting to get the impression that most giant company CEOs must only hang out with each other and other aliens.  Why else would they have to hire focus groups and marketing research firms? When you are dealing with something as widespread as the internet, all you have to do communicate with some human beings from time to time.  What do they like to do? How do they think?  These questions and more can be answered by hanging out with us.  My point is especially true for old, fat white CEOs trying to discover what diverse groups of younger people want, buy, and flock to.  As we get older, even the most righteously unique individuals settle into grooves and sort of roll, sink, and fall into groups rather than creating them – and the buzz and flockage that follows a nice spin-off sub-culture.

Microsoft, it seems, was busy dreaming up an inspired cock sucking contest with Mr. not-news himself while Google was inventing the Cloud. Awesome Microsoft, way to go.

If I was Microsoft’s father and Microsoft was a little league player, I wouldn’t know what to do right now. You can’t cheer your kid and praise his effort when he hits the ball deep into left field with a chance for an in-the park home run with the game tied in the bottom of the final inning when he  turns around and starts running off the field down the street somewhere.  I think I would start yelling, “What the fuck is that little moron doing?!” with all of the other bitter, angry, sports-failure dad’s.

What the fuck is that moron doing? And by moron, I mean Steve Ballmer.  I’m so glad we have a free-trade capitalist economy like we do.  It is set up perfectly to encourage the kind of creative, outside of the box thinking, Microsoft and News Corp plan on unleashing. Oh, wait.  This is the same swindling, money-grubbing bumbbling that recently collapsed the auto industry. Ideas like this from enormous American companies are as short-sighted and backwards as they are lazy and predictable.  For a moment there, after our financial and automotive industries came apart like a young Hollywood romance after three weeks, it looked like we were going to start innovating again. The joke’s on me.  Well played Microsoft. Well played.

Steve Ballmer, is my nomination for “Dumbest Rich Guy of the Decade.”  He is useless and the only good news for him is that if a live-action Simpsons show were ever in the works, he’d be first in line to play Homer Simpson.

Burns (played by James Gandolfini, after loosing 175 pounds and an Olsen twin as a result of a newly found love for mixing cocaine, meth, and epicat): “You nincompoop, whatever your name is -

Smithers (played by Timothy Geithner) interrupts to whisper: “- That’s Homer Simpson, Sir”

Burns continues: “Yes, Simpson, you idiot, you bungled another multi-billion dollar deal with Yahoo! You’re fired!”

Homer (played by that nincompoop Ballmer): “Doh!”

See, here’s the thing about the internet: It’s cool and fun and exciting and smart now, but it won’t always be. It became all of those things because people were sick of television, radio, newspapers, and books. The internet provided all of the beautiful innovation and inspiration other media weren’t*. Nothing stays the same for long, and the internet is no exception. The things that made T.V. (and its boring, lame buddies) old and stupid are taking hold in and on the internet. In some cases, the final result is sure to be much more harmful and stifling to creativity and fun and happiness.  Advertising and a now free for all race to rape internet users for every squeezable penny will help destroy the popularity of the internet.  Something cooler and awesomer and totally removed from “greedy corporations harshing our high” will come along and we’ll all flock to that.  Each next thing after the internet will thrive, like the internet did, until the desperation to make a profit from it drives the money-spending masses to go somewhere else.  The internet is already on the way out, and I know who killed it.

* Instead of innovating and using the internet’s successes as fuels for their fires, most members of traditional media industries, with few exceptions, have taken turns jumping on each other’s sinking ships.  The norm is stealing, and usually ruining, mediocre and entirely un-original ideas. Do the geniuses at Microsoft really think people will use Bing more if they can’t search for News Corp content using Google?

Note: I used google to research this entire post and I don’t know why.  Its painfully obvious that Microsoft doesn’t either.

He might be right because he may not need the whole internet to see his news in order to make an online profit.

Recently, Rupert Murdoch made waves saying he would pull his companies properties from Google’s search engine. News Corp properties such as Fox News, Fox Sports, The Wall Street Journal, etc. are popular destinations on the net. A lot of folks go to those sites now, a lot of them driven there by Google searches.

Rupert thinks he can can strike a deal with someone (Microsoft is the leading candidate) to pay for the privilege to index News Corps’ sites — exclusively. Additionally, he presumably also charges for access to the content on those sites, as the Wall Street Journal currently does. His thinking is that his content is better than everyone else, and he can live with a smaller audience if that audience is paying.

Feel free to debate amongst yourselves.

He also thinks other news organizations will follow in this path; that, as Ana Marie Cox would say, makes him “crazypants with arrogance sauce on top”. That is another discussion, but suffice to say, I don’t think it will work.

But common ‘net wisdom laughs at the idea of cutting yourself off from mighty Google; surely News Corp can’t manage to get along without those Google eyeballs. Bing only has ten percent of search! Yahoo merely eighteen! Without Google’s sixty-plus percent of search, surely News Corp’s content is doomed to be unseen! By anyone!

Except … not so much.

Two problems.

Tiny, Tiny, 10 Percent

Have you seen the size of ten percent? Nielsen’s ten percent puts Bing (and Microsoft’s other search tools) at 1,156,415,000 searches.

That’s 1.1 billion. With a ‘b’.

It doesn’t really matter that Google sees 6.9 billion; 1.1 billion is a big number, and for Rupert’s purposes, you can make a lot of money getting a slice of those 1.1 billion to pay you. And of those 1.1 billion searches, some percentage of them will pass links on via digital word-of-mouth, such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. Ten percent is indeed enough to get a good story inserted into the internet consciousness; if one of his properties has a scoop, people will discover it quickly.

Indeed, the idea that search is the main driver for traffic may be anachronistic over a five-year horizon. There are just too many other social network sites, too many other conversations happening by other means.

Aggregating the Aggregators

Remember, Murdoch’s great issue with search engines is that people are “stealing” his content by indexing it. They make money aggregating it after he created it. So he seeks to control this by erecting paywalls around content. That’s all well and good; he is certainly free to try this. But then there is this side idea of an exclusive indexing agreement. Such an agreement will make him some steady coin, and will be a loss-leader for the search engine in question. Think the Howard Stern Show for satellite radio.

Of course, as soon as Google/Bing/Yahoo meaningfully start to partition the internet, sites will spring up expressly to search across multiple search engines. The only reason this hasn’t happened is that while search results differ, they don’t differ in what they are trying to index. Search has been homogeneous in its raw material. Google has won so far because they index better. If someone built a much better search engine tomorrow, they could really threaten Google. (I’m not sure you could build a much better search engine, not tomorrow, however. Evolutionarily better, yes, revolutionary? Hard. And you’d have to fight against the Principle of Good Enough. Also hard.)

And yes, There Would Be Lawsuits, but that would take years, and probably make nothing clear. Meanwhile, toothpaste, long out of the tube.

Anyway, it doesn’t seem possible to actual control who can search for your pages; and I suspect that Murdoch doesn’t really care if he does.

But he is going to try charging for content, so he is ready to take a hit in terms of direct traffic already; restricting his search engine horizon will make little to no difference.

And you can bet he’d be happy to take Microsoft or Yahoo’s money for nothing.

By my own admission, I’ve become a complete hack, for using the term [blank]-killer.  A lot of people are asking whether News Corp would really block its content from Google’s index, and make a deal with Microsoft for exclusive search access.  And if they did, and others followed, would this represent a serious threat to Google?

The tech-über-alles crowd would have you believe that “de-indexing” from Google would be suicide for any publisher.  The assertion there is that Google drives the majority of web traffic, so if you’re not findable through Google, you might as well not be on the Internet.

But that assertion flies in the face of another observation from the technoscenti – social media like Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly important as traffic drivers (though this importance may be overhyped).  We may be heading towards a future where the links are shared through social media are more valuable than search links.

More importantly, and against the prevailing wisdom in some circles, content still matters.  People use media services because of the content on it.  Other factors are important too:  the features must be complete, the UI has to be easy, the price has to be right, yadda yadda yadda.  But would any of those other factors make up for terrible content?  No, content is, if no longer king, still the jewel in the crown.

If Bing is able to be the exclusive search partner for the right content, Google is dead.  Of course, what’s “right” can vary quite a lot from person to person.  For me, it’s as simple as two publications:  If the New York Times and Wikipedia are de-indexed from Google, I’m going to stop using Google in favor of the search engine that has those two.  I might think it’s unfair, I might think it’s a triumph of soulless MBAs over tech heroes, I might think it’s the desperate grasping of dying empires.  But I want the content I want, and those principles aren’t enough to prevent me from switching.

Bing doesn’t have to make deals with every content provider, just a dozen or so critical ones that will cause another 40% market share gain (they’re at 10% now).  Sure it’ll be expensive to acquire the best content, but Microsoft’s got more cash than Google.  Once it’s 50/50, it’s anybody’s ballgame but the advantage goes to the one who has the content.

I’m pretty sure that Google is not going to sit back and smugly assume that Murdoch’s gambit will fail.  They’re going to get involved, they’re going to try to start locking down their own partnerships.  If I were them, I’d start with Wikipedia, one of the most important search result destinations on the web – it’s in the top five results of just about any search you do.  Sure, they’re a non-profit, but non-profits need money too.

News Corp. is thinking about blocking Google from indexing their content. A number of media companies have expressed the view that Google’s indexing of their content is the same as stealing it. News Corp is also said to be in talks with Microsoft to have their content indexed exclusively on Bing and Microsoft may be willing to pay to do this.

I, for one, think this is a great idea. It would mean that the content that News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, produces would no longer show up when using Google to search, effectively eliminating a whole lot of crap that would otherwise show up in your search results. This will also put a huge dent in the traffic that Fox News websites receive as Bing is only used in about 10% of all web searches. One can only hope that News Corp. will actually be stupid enough to go through with such a deal.

A Microsoft tem mantido negociações com a News Corp sobre uma aliança que faria o império mundial de mídia ser pago para tirar seus sites de notícias do Google, informou uma fonte próxima do assunto no domingo (22).

A News Corp, que controla jornais como o “Wall Street Journal” e o “Sun”, iniciou as negociações, e as conversas estão em um estágio preliminar, informou a fonte.

O presidente-executivo da News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, tem afirmado que quer fazer as pessoas pagarem para ter acesso aos sites de jornais de seu grupo. Outras publicações que incluem o “New York Times” também estão buscando maneiras de cobrar por seu conteúdo, convencidas de que não devem entregar as notícias via mecanismos de busca como Google e Yahoo.

A Microsoft também tem conversado com outras empresas de comunicação sobre a remoção de seus sites do Google, segundo publicou o “Financial Times”.

“Isso se trata da Microsoft atingindo as margens do Google”, publicou o “Financial Times” citando um editor que foi contatado pela gigante de software.

A Microsoft, que relançou seu mecanismo de busca Bing este ano, está buscando maneiras de desafiar o Google no segmento.

Representantes da Microsoft não puderam ser contatados pela Reuters para comentar o assunto no domingo. A News Corp não fez declarações.

Fonte: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp has had talks with News Corp about a tie up, which would involve News Corp getting paid to take its news websites off Google Inc, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

News Corp, which owns such papers as the Wall Street Journal and the Sun, started the discussions, which were at an early stage, the source said.

News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has said he wants to make people pay for access to his news websites. Other publishers including The New York Times are also searching for ways to charge for news online, convinced that they must not give news through search engines such as Google and Yahoo Inc.

Beastie Boys – 14th St Break

Sa Ra – I Swear

Raphael Saadiq – Chic Like You

Common x D’Angelo – So Far To Go

What They Talking Bout

Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact (Financial Times)

The (New) Conservative Agenda (GQ)

Top 10: Habits That Improve Your Appearance (AskMen)

Eminem Releasing “Relapse: The Refill” Instead of “Relapse 2 ” in December (RollingStone)

Creating a Résumé That Sells (Wall Street Journal)

Oprah’s New Project: A Sexy Pilot With HBO (Essence)

Tips for Hassle-Free Holiday Travel (Essence)

]]> http://stateofthefourthestate.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/search-is-opportunity-not-cost/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:05:50 +0000 Dave Levy http://stateofthefourthestate.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/search-is-opportunity-not-cost/

Over the last 10 days, I’ve been thinking a lot about Rupert Murdoch’s discussions regarding Google and the content available throughout News Corp media outlets.

The first I started thinking about it was back early last week when it was noted that News Corp’s decision to pull itself from the search engine could cost them somewhere around $3m a year.

A friend of mine commented back when I posted the article to Twitter, and I didn’t think of it much at the time. Bill asserted that an exclusive deal for news content could hurt Google’s market share more so than the wallets of News Corp. The argument and ultimate result is that the revenue that Murdoch gives up via GOOG would be made up for by the exclusivity package.

I disagreed and left it with a pretty matter-of-fact response to me former classmate (“No one’s going to search for news and then go, ‘You know? There’s no WSJ here, I’m done.’”), but as this story has not died in the media critic world, I’ve been continuing to think about my stance. My argument stays strong: this move hurts the potential universe of News Corp’s audience, and it has to do with how we search for content.

From a search habit standpoint – without getting too theoretical – the utility of engines is to uncover what is most appropriate based on the topic for which a user is looking. Whether determined by algorithms or, in the old days, keywords, we have come to trust that the information a search turns up is in fact the most relevant. That’s why so many users click the first few results on a page – because we’ve been cognitively trained to accept those as the most reliable.

Why is this relevant? Because as users most adapted to the nature of search results, we’re pretty satisfied with the information served up. That’s why sponsored ads on Google search results became such a killer source of revenue: marketers aren’t paying for the link alone; they’re paying for the placement that included them in the attention span of information seeking.

As searchers, we don’t think about what isn’t there. We often don’t even look at everything that is there, and most of us stay on the first page of results of any time we search (I’m looking for more recent numbers to emphasize this, but research from a year or two back puts it close to a user clicks on a result on the first page approximately 7 out of 10 times).

With that habit, search is generally a suppplemental audience for content developers. Whether me or Murdoch, the incoming traffic from search is not radically different. Sure, I understand that my idea of getting noticed in search engines to drive people to my content has different goals than Mr. Murdoch’s, but it’s generally going to develop the same results. If I have more traffic, I can hope to push my ramblings out to more people (my reason for publishing); if he has more traffic, he can charge more for ads and make more money (his reason for publishing).

If you take away an avenue people get to your site, traffic will go down. Simple as that.

Search is an opportunity, not a cost. Work with it and you can increase your audience; ignore it or, worse, actively avoid it, and you are really helping speed up the process of being unnoticed.