And then this – today, Lord Mandelson declared war on the Murdoch empire. He accused him of trying to import a right wing style of journalism, resembling that of Fox News.

Mandelson made it clear that profit alone should not be the drive for British broadcasting and journalism.

It’s not all about money, Rupert.

The latest of the online lectures at CJS came from former student and now UK Editor of paidcontent.org Rob Andrews.

Set-up in 2002 by New York journalist Rafat Ali, paidcontent.org according to the site’s mission statement: “chronicle(s) the economic evolution of digital content that is shaping the future of the media, information and entertainment industries. Our belief is that in the near future, all media will be digital media, and we are helping define sustainable business models and innovation within this sector.

The site, which both breaks and aggregates new and was bought by Guardian News and Media Limited in 2008.

The future of online news has been the buzz topic within media circles this year and a number of media corporations including those within Rupert Murdoch’s Empire who will put up pay walls and start to charge for their content in the coming months.

But Rob Andrews believes it is going to be difficult to charge for news in a society where consumers have been brought up on free content for the last 10 years.

He compared the problem to that the music industry has faced in recent years.  People had become so used to downloading music through P2P file sharing sites that the music industry has had to move and adapt new areas.  Music is now easily available online on sites like spotify and we7 where it is funded by advertising.

Andrews’s believes journalism must also adapt but questioned whether society was ready for pay walls on news sites.  Andrew’s pointed out that while free content sites continue to increase their traffic of unique users, sites with pay walls are seeing a decrease and that 90% of people recently polled wanted free news.

According to the poll conducted by paidcontent.org and Harris Interactive: 74% of people would find a free new site if their regular site started to charge for its content and only 5% of people would pay.

Andrew Freeman, Harris’ senior media research consultant, said:

“This does not look like good news for a pay model in a competitive environment.  As long as free alternatives exist, consumers will turn to them for their daily news information, meaning heavy losses in terms of audience figures for those that charge. It remains to be seen whether the news industry will take the leap and begin charging for that which has been free for so long.”

The poll also indicated that if readers had to pay they would rather do it in the form of a yearly subscription with 54% of the vote.  This will surprise many as most models mooted to date have been in the micro-payment style of iTunes.

But yearly subscriptions are already commonplace in B2B magazines and specialist papers like the Financial Times.  Andrew’s pointed out that the FT had 198,000 paying customers.

But what is most worrying is the amount people were willing to pay for the product. For annual subscriptions 72% of people would expect to pay less than £10 –a yearly subscription to have the Guardian delivered daily is more than £300!

71% said they would pay a maximum of 25p for a day pass and 68% said they would pay 1-2p per article.  These statistics will cause many a sleepless night for Murdoch.

More encouraging for the pay-wall advocates is that 48% of people would pay for online content if it included a free or discounted paper.

The future according to Andrews’ is unclear, but as previously pointed to, there is the plausibility of charging for specialist journalism and this may also be true of local press  – this seems to have been missed by Johnston Press who will put up their pay walls this week.

In another timely turn of events Google has today announced it will restrict the number of free clicks to news articles to five-a-day.

Google senior business product manager Josh Cohen said:

“Now, we’ve updated the programme so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing. Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free.”

This is perhaps the first concession to Newscorp and Broadcasting and media consultant Steve Hewlett told the BBC that this was: “a pretty significant move.  Rupert Murdoch is trying to build a consensus that paying for content online is right and that aggregators like Google that use newspaper content but don’t pay for it are doing something wrong,” he said.

However the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones has more pessimistic about the move and reiterated that this latest move is only a small part of a much bigger battle.

The future of Journalism and paid content remains to be seen…

by nathanjurgenson

My previous post centered on the implications of Google’s dominance in internet search. However, subsequent major news provides the possibility of a major restructuring of the internet search market. It also has implications on how “flat” and “open” the web really is.

One of the basic things all users of the internet do is search. Search is what makes the abundance of information usable. We assume that our search engine has access to the relevant information on the web. Most of us simply use Google to do this. These last two statements are impacted by recent news that Microsoft and Newscorp are in talks to have Newscorp’s online content (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Times of London, The Sun in Britain, etc.) removed from Google and be hosted exclusively on Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

The magnitude of this news becomes clear given some of the possible implications:

1-While Google can well-afford to purchase exclusive content of its own, the very possibility of users having to go to different search engines for different types of searches so drastically changes the face of search that Google’s dominance could be unsettled. Will the users that so far have used Google out of habit continue to do so when they have to think about what engine to use depending on what they are searching for?

2-We may see a search engine arms race, where different engines gobble up different content, spreading information all around and making it far less usable for the rest of us. This creation of barriers to information and access is opposed to Friedman’s “flat world” hypothesis or the idea that “information wants to be free” (hypotheses that sociologists should be skeptical of in the first place). Whether this deal between Microsoft and Newscorp happens or not, we should remember that interested parties want information to remain expensive. ~nathan

News Corp. Weighs an Exclusive Alliance With Bing

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by nathanjurgenson

My previous post centered on the implications of Google’s dominance in internet search. However, subsequent major news provides the possibility of a major restructuring of the internet search market. It also has implications on how “flat” and “open” the web really is.

One of the basic things all users of the internet do is search. Search is what makes the abundance of information usable. We assume that our search engine has access to the relevant information on the web. Most of us simply use Google to do this. These last two statements are impacted by recent news that Microsoft and Newscorp are in talks to have Newscorp’s online content (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Times of London, The Sun in Britain, etc.) removed from Google and be hosted exclusively on Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

The magnitude of this news becomes clear given some of the possible implications:

1-While Google can well-afford to purchase exclusive content of its own, the very possibility of users having to go to different search engines for different types of searches so drastically changes the face of search that Google’s dominance could be unsettled. Will the users that so far have used Google out of habit continue to do so when they have to think about what engine to use depending on what they are searching for?

2-We may see a search engine arms race, where different engines gobble up different content, spreading information all around and making it far less usable for the rest of us. This creation of barriers to information and access is opposed to Friedman’s “flat world” hypothesis or the idea that “information wants to be free” (hypotheses that sociologists should be skeptical of in the first place). Whether this deal between Microsoft and Newscorp happens or not, we should remember that interested parties want information to remain expensive. ~nathan

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Furl | Newsvine

From the online pages of  The New York Times arrived the confirm of the meeting of R. Murdoch with Microsoft. Bing, Microsoft’s search engines, would pay NewsCorp. in order to have the exclusivity to publish the content of the Tycoon newspapers (i.e. The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, ect.). In some ways, Murdoch is keeping the promise to let newspapers content free of charge for the reader. Let’s look at the reason of the dealing. Maybe, we discover a new course for  newspapers’ business models.

Newspapers are competing with new media companies in general, and certain social networks in particular, for two main resources: human attention and price of information.

A) Human attention is a scarce resource. In the value chain, the content is created for capturing the attention of the costumers that then is sold as an extremely valuable resource (advertising). Therefore, the competition is for time.

B) The traditional content value chain (production, assembling and distribution), as we already said, is not anymore efficient because all the steps can be transferred to every user (social networks, blogs, etc.). Therefore, since the quantity of information is unlimited – because production of info is available to everyone – and quality too – is the context of the content that produce quality; since information is an experience good, quality is not only associated to brand but more and more is driven by the association with people we trust – then the price is can be affected only by the distribution. But, also distribution has, nowadays, infinite channels. So, it seems not possible to recreate artificial scarcity. Production=0 –>Distribution=0 –>Content Price=0. The more social networking, the less P.I.E (Potential Industry Earnings) for the newspapers industry (and all traditional media, of course). There are no entry barriers.

Content is the social value of information. Until now media company were managing this path, but now? Where is the economic value media industries are creating?

The value is mainly transferred in the searching engines (that is an oligopoly: Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc) where artificial scarcity is present.

This is way NewsCorp. is trying to deal with Bing. They exchange content for money. Until newspapers will find another way in order to recreate artificial scarcity in the production or assembling sides (and is not sure they will be able to do it), the NewsCorp. solution is a good deal for increasing revenues.

Neri

24/11/2009

According to the Financial Times Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp and Microsoft have been in talks to create an exclusive deal ensuring that only Microsoft’s own “Bing” search engine carries Newscorp content. Microsoft obviously intend this as an attack on Google who are their main competitor in the developing cloud/distributed computing field. For Newscorp it’s more the bellow of a dinosaur confused and frightened and by the new world it finds itself in, similar to the repeated wailing and gnashing of teeth that has been coming from the entertainment industry ever since its attack on Napster and 12 year old girls failed to quench people’s desire to share. What neither company realises however is that far from hurting Google they are simply going to be improving the quality of the service it delivers.

Imagine a world where you are searching for news and no longer have to deal with the right wing garbage spewed forth by such wonderful resources as Fox News or The Sun! A world where should you want to look for the opinion of a right wing bigot you actually have to specifically go and look for it.! It will be like Daily Mail Island but in reverse. As tie goes on and people are exposed to less and less of the ignorance, bigotry and hatred that Newscorp loves so dearly we will enter a new age where people respect one another and don’t live in fear of one another.  A world with no Richard Littlejohn…

So Microsoft and Newscorp I salute you for your valiant attempt to commit sepuku in order to preserve the future for our children.

Oh and please don’t take the Glenn Beck videos off youtube, he’s funny as fuck.

The Grusome Twosome.

Google just found another big ally against NewsCorp: Stone of Twitter.
And Stone offers a basic and wise advice to Murdoch:

‘Biz Stone says he’d “love to see what happens” if Rupert Murdoch really yanks his newspapers from Google, predicting that he’ll “fail fast.” The Twitter co-founder thinks News Corp would be better off trying “to make a ton of money from being radically open rather than some money from being ridiculously closed,” he said at an event in London.

‘Murdoch recently opined that search engines shouldn’t legally be able to use headlines from his papers in search results, and he’s announced his plan to put all of News Corp’s papers behind paywalls. Twitter by contrast is totally open, but some have questioned how it’ll make money. Stone says they’ve got monetization plans, notes the BBC, including “explicitly commercial accounts,” that allow users to pay for analytics. It’s also considering selling data to search engines.’ -BBC

ISTITUITO CENTRO STUDI DIFESA AUTORI E LIBERTA’ INFORMAZIONE (ANSA)

Tullio Camiglieri

ROMA, 18 NOV - E’ nato oggi a Roma il Centro Studi per la Difesa dei Diritti degli Autori e per la Liberta’ di informazione. L’incarico di coordinatore del centro e’ stato affidato a Tullio Camiglieri. ”La Rete e’ un ambiente libero e deve restare tale, ha detto Camiglieri – ma non è piu’ tollerabile che sia consentito ad alcuni di continuare a calpestare i diritti dei produttori di contenuti e degli operatori dell’informazione. Oggi, attraverso motori di ricerca, c’e’ la possibilita’ di accedere in modo rapido, con dei ‘link’, ad articoli, film e video protetti da copyright, con il rischio che la capacita’ di creare contenuti editoriali si impoverisca fino a svanire. Produrre informazione costa, come costa produrre intrattenimento. La nascita di questo Centro Studi rappresenta un segnale molto importante per la tutela dei diritti di chi produce contenuti audiovisivi, cinema, giornali, libri: aziende che investono grandi capitali dando lavoro a centinaia di migliaia di persone’‘. ”E’ del tutto evidente – ha aggiunto – che se la situazione continuerà a peggiorare, gli editori non avranno piu’ ragione d’investire le loro risorse in questi settori. La libertà di stampa passa attraverso la valorizzazione del lavoro dei giornalisti e la tutela degli investimenti degli editori; anche il mondo della produzione cinematografica chiede da tempo il rispetto per il lavoro degli autori, degli artisti e dei produttori”. ‘‘E’ tutto il mondo della produzione – ha concluso Camiglieri – che pretende attenzione. Da qui dovremo partire per i nostri lavori di studio e di ricerca a tutela degli investitori. Una nazione che non sa difendere la propria industria culturale e’ condannata a non avere un grande futuro. Dovremo essere capaci di creare tutti i presupposti per garantire un futuro alla produzione di contenuti e alla liberta’ di informazione, non delegabile solo a degli algoritmi”. (ANSA). VL 18-NOV-09 17:55 NNN

Media: Camiglieri coordinatore Centro Studi diritti autori

ROMA (MF-DJ)–E’ nato oggi a Roma il Centro Studi per la difesa dei diritti degli autori e per la liberta’ di informazione che ha affidato a Tullio Camiglieri l’incarico di coordinatore. “La Rete e’ un ambiente libero e deve restare tale, ma non e’ piu’ tollerabile che sia consentito ad alcuni di continuare a calpestare i diritti dei produttori di contenuti e degli operatori dell’informazione. Oggi, attraverso motori di ricerca, c’e’ la possibilita’ di accedere in modo rapido, con dei “link”, ad articoli, film e video protetti da copyright, con il rischio che la capacita’ di creare contenuti editoriali si impoverisca fino a svanire. Produrre informazione costa, come costa produrre intrattenimento. La nascita di questo Centro Studi rappresenta un segnale molto importante per la tutela dei diritti di chi produce contenuti audiovisivi, cinema, giornali, libri: aziende che investono grandi capitali dando lavoro a centinaia di migliaia di persone“, dichiara Camiglieri.

“E’ del tutto evidente – prosegue – che se la situazione continuera’ a peggiorare, gli editori non avranno più ragione di investire le loro risorse in questi settori. La liberta’ di stampa passa attraverso la valorizzazione del lavoro dei giornalisti e la tutela degli investimenti degli editori; anche il mondo della produzione cinematografica chiede da tempo il rispetto per il lavoro degli autori, degli artisti e dei produttori“.

“E’ tutto il mondo della produzione che pretende attenzione. Da qui dovremo partire per i nostri lavori di studio e di ricerca a tutela degli investitori. Una nazione che non sa difendere la propria industria culturale è condannata a non avere un grande futuro. Dovremo essere capaci di creare tutti i presupposti per garantire un futuro alla produzione di contenuti e alla libertà di informazione, non delegabile solo a degli algoritmi“, conclude.

com/pev

INFORMAZIONE: NASCE CENTRO STUDI DIFESA DIRITTI AUTORI E LIBERTA’ (ASCA) – Roma, 18 nov - E’ nato oggi a Roma il Centro Studi per la difesa dei diritti degli autori e per la liberta’ di informazione che ha affidato a Tullio Camiglieri l’incarico di coordinatore. ”La Rete – spiega Camiglieri – è un ambiente libero e deve restare tale, ma non e’ piu’ tollerabile che sia consentito ad alcuni di continuare a calpestare i diritti dei produttori di contenuti e degli operatori dell’informazione. Oggi, attraverso motori di ricerca, c’e’ la possibilita’ di accedere in modo rapido, con dei ‘link’, ad articoli, film e video protetti da copyright, con il rischio che la capacita’ di creare contenuti editoriali si impoverisca fino a svanire”. Secondo Camiglieri ”produrre informazione costa, come costa produrre intrattenimento. La nascita di questo Centro Studi rappresenta un segnale molto importante per la tutela dei diritti di chi produce contenuti audiovisivi, cinema, giornali, libri: aziende che investono grandi capitali dando lavoro a centinaia di migliaia di persone”. E’ del tutto evidente – prosegue – ”che se la situazione continuera’ a peggiorare, gli editori non avranno piu’ ragione di investire le loro risorse in questi settori. La liberta’ di stampa passa attraverso la valorizzazione del lavoro dei giornalisti e la tutela degli investimenti degli editori; anche il mondo della produzione cinematografica chiede da tempo il rispetto per il lavoro degli autori, degli artisti e dei produttori”.

Secondo Camiglieri ”e’ tutto il mondo della produzione che pretende attenzione. Da qui dovremo partire per i nostri lavori di studio e di ricerca a tutela degli investitori. Una nazione che non sa difendere la propria industria culturale e’ condannata a non avere un grande futuro. Dovremo essere capaci di creare tutti i presupposti per garantire un futuro alla produzione di contenuti e alla liberta’ di informazione, non delegabile solo a degli algoritmi”. red-glr/mcc/alf 181723 NOV 09 NNNN

E’ nato il Centro Studi per la difesa dei diritti degli autori Roma, 18 NOV (Velino) - “La Rete e’ un ambiente libero e deve restare tale, ma non e’ piu’ tollerabile che sia consentito ad alcuni di continuare a calpestare i diritti dei produttori di contenuti e degli operatori dell’informazione“. Così Tullio Camiglieri, coordinatore del neonato Centro Studi per la difesa dei diritti degli autori e per la liberta’ di informazione. “Oggi, attraverso motori di ricerca, c’e’ la possibilita’ di accedere in modo rapido, con dei ‘link’, ad articoli, film e video protetti da copyright, con il rischio che la capacita’ di creare contenuti editoriali si impoverisca fino a svanire. Produrre informazione costa, come costa produrre intrattenimento – afferma Camiglieri -. La nascita di questo Centro Studi rappresenta un segnale molto importante per la tutela dei diritti di chi produce contenuti audiovisivi, cinema, giornali, libri: aziende che investono grandi capitali dando lavoro a centinaia di migliaia di persone“. (segue) (com/dbr) 181702 NOV 09 NNNN

E’ nato il Centro Studi per la difesa dei diritti degli autori (2) Roma, 18 NOV (Velino) - “E’ del tutto evidente - prosegue Camiglieri – che se la situazione continuera’ a peggiorare, gli editori non avranno piu’ ragione di investire le loro risorse in questi settori. La liberta’ di stampa passa attraverso la valorizzazione del lavoro dei giornalisti e la tutela degli investimenti degli editori; anche il mondo della produzione cinematografica chiede da tempo il rispetto per il lavoro degli autori, degli artisti e dei produttori“. “E’ tutto il mondo della produzione che pretende attenzione – sottolinea Camiglieri -. Da qui dovremo partire per i nostri lavori di studio e di ricerca a tutela degli investitori. Una nazione che non sa difendere la propria industria culturale e’ condannata a non avere un grande futuro. Dovremo essere capaci di creare tutti i presupposti per garantire un futuro alla produzione di contenuti e alla liberta’ di informazione, non delegabile solo a degli algoritmi“. (com/dbr) 181702 NOV 09 NNNN

18/11/2009  NASCE CENTRO STUDI DIFESA DIRITTI AUTORI. CAMIGLIERI COORDINATORI – ITALPRESS

INFORMAZIONE: NASCE CENTRO STUDI PER DIFESA DIRITTI AUTORI E PER LIBERTA’ NOMINATO COORDINATORE TULLIO CAMIGLIERI

Roma, 18 nov. – (Adnkronos) - E’ nato oggi a Roma il Centro Studi per la difesa dei diritti degli autori e per la liberta’ di informazione che ha affidato a Tullio Camiglieri l’incarico di coordinatore.”La Rete e’ un ambiente libero e deve restare tale -ha detto Camiglieri- ma non è piu’ tollerabile che sia consentito ad alcuni di continuare a calpestare i diritti dei produttori di contenuti e degli operatori dell’informazione. Oggi, attraverso motori di ricerca, c’e’ la possibilita’ di accedere in modo rapido, con dei ‘link’, ad articoli, film e video protetti da copyright, con il rischio che la capacita’ di creare contenuti editoriali si impoverisca fino a svanire. Produrre informazione costa, come costa produrre intrattenimento”. ”La nascita di questo Centro Studi -ha proseguito Camiglieri- rappresenta un segnale molto importante per la tutela dei diritti di chi produce contenuti audiovisivi, cinema, giornali, libri: aziende che investono grandi capitali dando lavoro a centinaia di migliaia di persone. E’ del tutto evidente -spiega- che se la situazione continuera’ a peggiorare, gli editori non avranno piu’ ragione di investire le loro risorse in questi settori. La liberta’ di stampa passa attraverso la valorizzazione del lavoro dei giornalisti e la tutela degli investimenti degli editori; anche il mondo della produzione cinematografica chiede da tempo il rispetto per il lavoro degli autori, degli artisti e dei produttori”. ”E’ tutto il mondo della produzione che pretende attenzione -sottolinea Camiglieri- Da qui dovremo partire per i nostri lavori di studio e di ricerca a tutela degli investitori. Una nazione che non sa difendere la propria industria culturale e’ condannata a non avere un grande futuro. Dovremo essere capaci di creare tutti i presupposti per garantire un futuro alla produzione di contenuti e alla liberta’ di informazione, non delegabile solo a degli algoritmi’‘.

(Toa/Pn/Adnkronos) 18-NOV-09 18:22 NNNN

After my post last week about Mr Murdoch and his dislike of online content aggregation tools, specifically Google, I was interested this article on TechCrunch as to whether NewsCorp could indeed hurt Google.

My point of view, especially after my detailed chat with my colleague Ged Carroll,  is that he can’t beat Google, but I think he can scare the bejesus out of Google shareholders and then make Google do something it doesn’t necessarily want to.

Theoretically, as was discussed in the TechCrunch article, if Murdoch can convince Bing, Microsoft’s aggregator, to pay for the aggregation rights of NewsCorp material, it could be worth removing NewsCorp from Google’s online rankings. If he can show he is earning more money from Bing, other news companies might follow suit. Then Google has problems.

By stepping up to Google, perhaps he hopes it back down and deal. This would clearly benefit NewsCorp. Like him or loathe him, he’s clever and he must have something up his sleeve.

According to cash alone, despite his many billions of dollars, Google should win this war, but Murdoch is one of a few people in the world that just by saying his name can cause people, especially in the media world, to shake in their boots. Not many people can get through to whatever Head of State he/she wants, when he wants. Murdoch can and that means something.

Thoughts?

Previously on Braindumped: Here

Interesting updates from Techcrunch:
How Murdoch Can Really Hurt Google And Shift The Balance Of Power In Search

If other media companies joined Murdoch Google could actually find itself in a very difficult position, where Bing had content that Google didn’t. If you knew that Wall Street Journal and, say, New York TImes content was only in Bing search results, mainstream search users would suddenly have a big reason to go to Bing.

This would shift the balance of power away from search engines and to the content sites – if they could pull it off. Bidding wars over rights to index content would conceivably break out between Google and Microsoft, just as bidding wars have broken out in the past over the right to serve search ads into third party publishing sites.

If Murdoch is going to go through with this de-indexing Mexican standoff thing, he might as well do it the right way and drive the fear of God into Google. As a spectator, I’ll enjoy watching the fireworks.

Of course there’s another sideshow going on here as well – the renegotiation of the MySpace search deal with Google that ends next year. That deal brings in $300 million a year to News Corp., and it’s clear Google is done paying that much money.

From BoingBoing:

So here’s what I think it going on. Murdoch has no intention of shutting down search-engine traffic to his sites, but he’s still having lurid fantasies inspired by the momentary insanity that caused Google to pay him for the exclusive right to index MySpace (thus momentarily rendering MySpace a visionary business-move instead of a ten-minutes-behind-the-curve cash-dump).

So what he’s hoping is that a second-tier search engine like Bing or Ask (or, better yet, some search tool you’ve never heard of that just got $50MM in venture capital) will give him half a year’s operating budget in exchange for a competitive advantage over Google.

My favorite update from Mark Cuban:

1. Best Case: They opt out and see an increase in revenues and commitment to their sites because people choose to go directly to their sites. For those sites behind a paywall, they generate more revenue than when the site was free. Other sites notice their success and copy Newscorp, choosing to opt out of the Google index. The opt out choice turns out to be the better business move for any and all sites looking to increase revenues. Google’s position as the leading search engine is called into question. The Search business becomes competitive again. Content companies now understand how to best monetize their content efforts.

Far fetched ? Maybe. But not totally inconceivable.

2. Worst Case: They opt out of Google’s Index. Their traffic drops 99pct. No one buys their pay offerings. They all feel like idiots. Then the last idiot left in the office gets out the text editor and changes the robots.txt file or completely deletes it. They turn off the paywalls. Make the content free again. Life as they knew it before they opted out and started charging for content returns to normal as quickly as Google can reindex the Newscorp sites.

P.S. – I would updated my previous post but I don’t know how to ensure that updated posts rise to the top of my blog

Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google’s search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.

In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web.

At least someone in the audience likes him....maybe a little too much.

I know the story is a couple of days old now, but it is such a good’n’ I feel the need to commit something to writing so that I to may basque in the glory of I-WAS-RIGHT-AND-HE-WAS-SO-VERY-WRONG that will inevitably come in the near future.

This glorious day has a 80% chance of arriving in one of two ways:

1. Because his advisors (who MUST be better at running a company than Rupert, otherwise News Corp would no longer be trading) have managed to convince the old crone that he may as well start giving away free anthrax samples with every newspaper for all the good blocking his sites from search engines will do.

or

2. The guy would have stamped his feet enough that News Corp actually go through with his ‘evil’ plan (no, I don’t ACTUALLY think his plan is evil….it just sounded good), that traffic to his sites drops dramatically, he fails to reach existing visit targets for advertisers and loses gazillions of dollars, and the lack of traffic/negative press deter future advertisers from his sites.

So why only 80% chance you ask?  Well…..he’s not a spring chicken any more.  I’m just sayin’!  Even I won’t gloat over the body of a dead man.  I wish him many more happy years,  cause I REALLY, REALLY want to gloat.

So, I must tell you now that I am actually a large customer of Mr Murdoch (no, I’m not fat, I meant financially).  That is, not a small sum of money leaves my account each month in exchange for a Sky+ HD Multiroom subscription.  I also pay for all the TV packages, the Movies and the Sports, the telephone line, telephone calls, and broadband.  I also work away from home a lot, so having access to SKY Player to watch movies and current TV is a real bonus.

I find that technically, the service is sound.  It very rarely goes wrong.  Financially, it is a good deal.  If I were to piece together the same package from separate providers it would cost much more.  Other than Virgin of course, but cable isn’t available in the area for that apartment.   However, the customer service, the engineers, the call centres, and the billing system sucks.  It is a close 2nd for suckiness behind BT.  But, if the technology itself never goes wrong, then I should never have to speak with them.  I will continue to keep my fingers crossed, but if it was to start breaking down and I actually had to start dealing with these people (the people that took 4 hours and 6 phone conversations to understand that I wanted to upgrade to HD), then I would most certainly go elsewhere.  I’m lucky enough to be in a position where my time is more valuable than money, and if Sky start stealing that, then I really would get mad (with steam out of the ears and everything).

My point being that I and I’m sure most other consumers are savvy.  We weigh up what we want, we estimate what we think something is worth.  We will sometimes pay a little more than something is worth, but we will weigh up the benefits of having that item or service against how much it will dent our pockets (the only exception to this general rule of thumb is drugs;  drugs put a whole new spin on ‘reasoned’ analysis, so we’ll quietly ignore THOSE purchases for now). Oh, and by the way, DON’T DO DRUGS!!   So, back to my point; if I get a better, more comprehensive, FREE news/tabloid service from many other companies, there is no way in heck that I’ll be paying any extra for it.

I downloaded a new Sky Mobile App on the iPhone yesterday.  Wow! Does this mean I get the same functionality of SKY Player on my iPhone??  No. Does it mean I get the SKY news channel coupled with a few Sports Channels? Yes; I feel I’m starting to lose you. So I get this free because I’m a SKY customer, already paying for this content with a full SKY subscription? No. What the F%*k?  So how much is it? £6 per month. £6 a month to access something I can already access on my laptop, PC, or at home at no extra cost? Yes. That blows! Yes, yes Mr Stakounis, it does indeed…blow.

The app will most certainly be useful for all those Premierball, ship thing match fans who don’t have a Sky subscription, and I’m sure it’ll make Murdoch a few more quids to line his coffin with, however I resent being asked to pay for the same thing twice.  Just like I resent being asked for money to access something which others are providing for free.

Even before the internet I got all my news from Reuters. I ‘browse’ Reuters for news, if I overhear a snipet or want to lookup a news story, I will Google it, and I will usually pick a selection of sites to read about the subject.  Once on those sites, I almost always start clicking links in the sidebar to other potentially interesting content, whether it be commercial or not.  I have asked a few friends and colleagues whether this is normal surfing behavior (because lets face it, I’m not to know what is normal), and shock of all shocks, a unanimous “yeah, we’re with you Rich, that’s exactly how we ‘do’ the internet too”.  So, I believe that when Mr M said that “readers who randomly reach a page via an internet search hold little value to advertisers.”, he was talking from a point of very little understanding of his readership, the internet, or the modern e-marketplace.  Thank goodness for News Corp that they employ intelligent people to, you know, actually RUN the company.  But as far as pretty-boy, air-headed, company poster-boys go; I don’t rate him.  He doesn’t turn me on to the company, doesn’t turn me on (perish the thought), and doesn’t make me want to buy anything.  In fact every time he speaks in public I feel kinda dirty.

I used to buy the Times on an occasional Sunday morning and spend the day reading at a street cafe in London, just to pass the time, but I have never bought a tabloid, I don’t care for gutter journalism, I like to keep my ‘news’ completely separate from my ‘editorials, opinions, and commentaries’, and I certainly will not be paying anymore money the Sky/News Corp or Mr M in any guise unless absolutely necessary.  My Sky subscription has increased by 25% in 2 years as it is.

The plain truth is, that Murdoch has too much influence on the social and political leanings of his press, his opinions and ideals are separated by a whole world’s worth of space from mine, and I simply won’t pay to be fed it, unless it is done with reason, education, information, and intelligence.

Related articles.

That is, according to Rupert Murdoch.  You see, a few days ago, good ‘ole Rooper-boy told the Australian press (well, SkyNews Australia) that he will remove stories from Google’s search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.

Of course this caused a great disturbance in the blogosphere, who really didn’t seem to want to remember that the man who controls the less-than-accurate-media empire has said this before.  The Associated Press has said it (and has yet to pull the trigger).  Google was sanguine about the matter, saying in essence “Go for it”. 

So how does Rupert Murdoch plan to quit teh Google?   Making a deal with Bing?  Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land thinks otherwise:

The reality is that the Wall Street Journal execs seem to be leading a charge against Google without really knowing where they are going or what they want. They already get lots of traffic plus get to have a paywall, thanks to First Click Free at Google. And yet, Murdoch doesn’t seem to know exactly how that operates or how Google indexes his paper. His managing editor Robert Thomson gets confused about font sizes and how Google News works. I get the impression both of them are good at talking but don’t know the actual realities of their traffic situation in relation to Google. Or they know it well but are happy to ignore it.

Oh, Snap. You see, right now, news has a relationship with Google much like Billie Holiday did with heroin.  While it is possible to quit, it won’t be easy.  It will be a long, painful process, that may not even need to happen.  Especially when it is estimated that Google brings about twenty-five percent of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal traffic.  That kind of pain stockholders may want to think twice about before going cold turkey.

But there is an ugly truth out there that Murdoch may have sensed out that many do not see.  Twitter.  Twitter is surpassing Google as a destination for finding information on breaking and recent news of all types.  Twitter and Facebook are platforms that allow the news sources to post breaking news and gain value from their brand. Google does not.  In other words, if I trust a newspaper, TV or any  brand, I can follow it on twitter and expect the news to come to me.  The concept  of “If the news is important, it will find me” works better by the day.  If it matters to me, chances are very good its in one of the twitter feeds I follow on real time feed. Users will continue to source news through Google.  Now don’t get me wrong, Google ain’t going away any time soon.  But for Real-Time news, Google is not in the equation. 

But all of this ignores a very simple question that no one is really wanting to ask-Do you really want to pay for opinutainment Fox News?

Now Playing: Missing Persons – Spring Session M – Words

Here’s a first look at Rupert Murdoch’s plan to make news invisible to internet search engines.

Dallas Mavericks owner and media conglomerate himself, Mark Cuban, examines Murdoch’s plan in 2 parts, which you  can find at Blog Maverick.

Cuban brings to light an interesting conundrum. Imagine, free content disappearing! Content we’ve assumed would be available for free, forever. Free newspaper articles, columns, etc.

Should this content be available for free, regardless? Well. It’s hard for me to say it shouldn’t be blocked. As newspapers are going belly up at an alarming rate, it can be easy to put some blame on the fact that everything we need is a google search away.

Cuban’s commentary is more on the effect it would have on google as a resource, as well as facebook and twitter. I agree, I think as far as getting info immediately, people go to facebook or twitter to get that information in real time.

Considering Murdoch’s wide ranging corporate tentacles, the switch to pay content could be huge and wide ranging. I guess time will tell if that’s the direction things could go in. I don’t think we’ll see it immediately, anyway.

Interesting ! Rupert Murdoch has stated that NewsCorp would in the near future block Google from sending spiders to crawl and index NewsCorp pages which basically means that if you search for news in Google, NewsCorp results would not appear.

Video announcing the same:

While this may actually look like a bad thing for NewsCorp (not getting listed in Google rankings), it really isn’t. After all they have huge brand equity which can actually stand up against Google’s might. Anyways, the comments section is afire. Murdoch doing what he does best. Here are two interesting viewpoints:
Mark Cuban says that the game has changed for Google as now people just don’t use Google much for searching breaking news. That has been usurped by Twitter and Facebook (what is really called the real-time web). Hence, for breaking news it makes more sense to follow that particular media company, magazine, what have you on Twitter and Facebook.  Particularly enlightening quote:

Twitter and Facebook have become the ultimate real time programming guides.  Look at it like this. “Hear about bubble boy from a follow”. If: “its a news source, go to that news source” If not: “Look it up on twitter (or i use icerocket.com it shows tweeter authority) to see if there are any 1st hand accouts or check my FB wall to see what my friends have to say,  if anything”  “See tweets/posts to determine how I want to get more information:  from  TV ( stream, regular, phone), or from online written or audio source” if online: “go to that source from link in twitter or facebook”

All of the above complements everything Rupert and Newscorp are doing. Google is no where to be found in that equation.

Another interesting  viewpoint from Jason Calacanis (from his newsletter which I subscribe to. He says this would be the most opportune moment for companies like Bing to go all out and negotiate with Murdoch and NewsCorp. From the letter:

Essentially, I put forth a simple strategy for Microsoft to pursue with Bing in which they would go to content providers like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal and offer them 50% more revenue then they are currently getting from Google search referrals to be exclusively indexed in Bing.

This is 100% legal and, in fact, Google encourages people who don’t like how they do business to opt out of the Google index (they can do that because they are so huge and because they don’t like to be evil).

So, for a moment, imagine a world where Bing could say in their TV commercials:

“Want to search the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and 3,894 other newspapers and magazine?”

“Well, then don’t go to Google because they don’t have them!”

“Go to Bing, home of quality content you can trust!”

Comments are interesting and insighful as well

Interesting points to which I replied back saying:

1. What would stop Google from negotiating for a higher revenue share? They did start off their business in a big way by doing the same with AOL. Would this lead to some kind of bidding war among search enginers? In which case, what would be the scenario in case all the big guys grouped together and said “Bid for ad spots on all our sites”? Would such a scenario be feasible? So would this then be a case study on not just blocking the spiders from some sites and negotiating with another or more about how big audience sites can make more money by playing off one search service provider against another

2. Bing may also be able to negotiate on other aspects of the advertising such as the metrics that Bing would share with NewsCorp. As per my understanding, Google has not been very transparent in terms of how the revenue shared is reached. This might be another differentiating factor. Would like your thoughts on this

Video of Jason’s back and forth here with Lon and Tyler:

Well, to be very honest, it’s a very very ballsy move by Murdoch (Something that is a frequent happening in his life). After the disappointment of the Myspace acquisition, this is his new move on the Internets. The interesting thing is what happens if this succeeds?. That results in definition of an automatic threshold for price discrimination i.e. how many followers, page views, etc. do I need to have before I can open my ad inventory for negotiations? This makes news aggregation sites such as Weblogs pretty powerful especially in the number of sites they control and the ad inventory they deliver. Especially if they use the 140-word limited Twitter and updates to display the “tease” (A headline with a link to the content behind paywalls). So essentially, the equivalent to reading a newspaper is : You browse through the headlines on Twitter and Facebook and if you like something, you click through to read the content behind the paywall (The main body of the news). See any Google intervention there? Frankly, do you see any search engine intervention anywhere?

What does this mean for the media industry as a whole? What happens if pay walls allowed subscribers to access the content through an RSS feed with Bing adding a link saying “Want to read more?” which directs the person to the Bing site, this totally removes only Google from the scene.

I am going to watch this closely. This really changes the rules of the game from the search provider dictating the terms to the content provider choosing his delivery mechanism

Other links: PaidContent reports

Updates:
Google replies with its standard PR reply doesn’t say what the impact to it will be;
John Battelle comments- short and sweet

Thank you Murdoch!!  The media news of the day is that Murdoch is getting more serious about blocking Google from listing his sites.   Bad business decision but unless teabaggers are willing to spend their money to call people socialist on sites like Fox News and The Sun, then they might need to look for another venue.  Murdoch also owns Wall Street Journal and you already have to pay in order to access full news articles.  Google has responded, basically saying if he and anyone else don’t want their sites to appear in the search engine then they can request those sites be removed.

If you ask me this is a great day for those that are sick of the misinformation coming out of NewCorps.  Fox News shouldn’t even be a labeled as a news site.  Maybe this would force the Tea Baggers to get their news from better news sources.  Too bad Murdoch’s greed ass couldn’t put Fox News on a premium cable station, maybe then the Rednecks would be forced to switch their teevee stations to something substantive.

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Il boss di NewsCorp rispolvera la sua idea di pay-per-news e minaccia l’esodo del suo network da Google. Scettici gli addetti ai lavori

Escludere i siti che fanno capo a NewsCorp dagli indici di Google. Denunciare il fair use e far pagare le news online come i quotidiani cartacei. Lo ha ribadito Rupert Murdoch in un’intervista rilasciata a Sky News.

Negli ultimi tempi il magnate di origine australiana si è scagliato più volte contro quelli che lui stesso ha definito “ladri di contenuti”, il cui crimine sarebbe quello di linkare un articolo di giornale. “Se i consumatori – ha dichiarato Murdoch - sono felici di pagare per leggere i giornali di carta non vedo perché non debbano essere altrettanto felici per leggere le stesse notizie online“.

In cima alla lista dei cattivi stilata da Murdoch c’è Google che, raccogliendo nella sezione News articoli da quasi ogni sito di informazione esistente, sminuirebbe il ruolo dell’advertising, strumento fondamentale per la sopravvivenza dell’editoria online. “Presto - ha spiegato il magnate – faremo in modo che i nostri siti non compaiano più nelle pagine di Google“.

Sempre secondo Murdoch migliaia di blogger dovrebbero essere denunciati: linkano e commentano un articolo per il quale non hanno sborsato un centesimo e pertanto vanno puniti. “Il fair use è una pratica illegale che andrebbe affrontata in sede giuridica” ha concluso il proprietario di NewsCorp.

Tuttavia a contrastare quella che il Guardian ha definito “la costruzione di un pay-wall per il Web” potrebbero intervenire le autorità Antitrust. Esperti britannici hanno sottolineato come questa ipotesi possa tradursi in realtà nel caso Murdoch dovesse riuscire nel suo intento.

Giorgio Pontico – Punto Informatico

Riportiamo questo articolo in quanto pubblicato sotto licenza Creative Commons

How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons, by Sam Barry

On a beautiful day in San Francisco 16-year-old Laura Ruth Barry had no trouble defending her San Francisco Parkside tennis crown, beating fellow American Sam Barry (who is, in an extraordinary coincidence, her father) 6-1 and 6-2. The match was actually more lopsided than the score would indicate; basically, Barry kicked Barry’s ass. You might say that Barry, who has beaten Barry before, beat him some more.

And speaking of Moore, I saw Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story this weekend. I really liked it. I thought it was a great opinion piece. Many critics think the movie lacks nuance and that it provided half-truths; if they are of a certain worldview, they believe it is a complete misrepresentation of the facts. I think it works. I have evidence.

Around the time this movie was released I was on a Fox News web show called The Strategy Room for my book How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons. The Strategy Room is one of those shows where people sit shoulder to shoulder, interrupting each other but mostly agreeing on one thing: they know the other guys are the problem. In Fox’s case, the other guys are anybody to the left of The Wall Street Journal’s opinion and editorial page. [Full disclosure: I work for HarperCollins, which is owned by NewsCorp, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, more or less. Murdoch, or, as we call him at work, Uncle Rupert, also owns Fox and the Wall Street Journal. It’s very possible that he owns the New York Yankees, Taiwan, and Michael Moore’s home.]

When I walked onto the set at The Strategy Room they were engaged in one of television and radio’s most popular current exercises: lofting each other softballs and smacking them out of the park. There was no doubt about the political leanings of the assembled group; all you had to do was say a handy word like “Clinton,” or “Obama,” or “democrat,” or “socialism,” and everybody dove in, teeth bared, rending the straw man to shreds in seconds.

Which made me wonder how I was going to fit in. If you read my book—and I really think you should, for the good of the world—you will notice a distinct lack of political polemic. This is not because I don’t have opinions; it’s just that a book called How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons hardly seems the right vehicle for expressing such views. But maybe I missed my chance, because at one point the Strategy Room panel leader, Father Jonathan Morris (who I happen to kind-of know from my work—HarperOne published his book The Promise) managed to use my mentioning the fact that the Rock Bottom Remainders don’t get paid for what we do (because, frankly, we shouldn’t; instead we raise money for literacy) to score points aganst Moore. Father Jonathan approved of the Remainders charitable efforts so he could lambast Moore for simultaneously opposing capitalism and making money from his movie.

I don’t know about the merits of that argument, but I do know that the heightened concern of all these right-leaning talking heads with smacking down Moore is proof that he made a good movie; they know it’s a message a lot of people want to hear, and so they attack the messenger.

Personally, I don’t think you need to be a genius to see that we have a serious problem with greed in this country; my experience and observations also tell me we lack a safety net for the vulnerable among us. These two matters should be national priorities. I’m a middle class white guy with a lot of good friends and family, and I can see the yawning chasm of poverty not so far below. I had a bout with cancer, and were it not for the insurance provided by Uncle Rupert’s company I don’t know that I would be here today. I also can’t risk leaving my job, because I now have a few pre-existing conditions. (Not that I want to leave my job, NewsCorp—I love you! I love HarperCollins! But what if I did? Or what if *gulp* you tell me to leave?)

I don’t think that Michael Moore has the answers, but I am glad he preached his sermon and raised the questions. It’s easy for us—the masses (face it, that’s who we are, in the political arena)—to be distracted by the smoke and mirrors of powerful interests. It happens here in the country I love, and it happens elsewhere. For instance, my son Daniel is in Taiwan, where he reports:

“It’s interesting that Chen Shui-Bian made off with obscene amounts of Taiwanese people’s embezzled money after declaring that ‘Taiwanese politics is without a question of right or left, only a question of independence or re-unification.’ How beautiful! The Taiwanese are all sitting around thinking about ideas of Chinese identity and NOT about the redistribution of wealth, while Chen Shui-Bian takes all the wealth for himself!”

The haves will always take all the wealth for themselves, if they can. For more on this, look around. They have done so in the United States in my lifetime with great boldness and skill. The question is, how can we redress this imbalance? And if we do so in a way that is fair-minded and good for all the people, will that mean I’ll have another shot at finally beating my daughter in tennis?

As you can see right there in the picture, Hulu’s tag line tells us we can watch anytime for free. Well, soon this will no longer be the case. Hulu parent company NewsCorp has decided that sometime in 2010, Hulu will become a paid service. They stated that it is time to start getting paid for “broadcast content” that is viewed online. So it’s not like paying will get you and upgrade and let you watch your favorite new movies or HBO series, you won’t be able to watch much of anything on Hulu without paying. They promise that some things will remain free, but it is unlikely that any of the real TV shows we all use Hulu to watch will be free. So its back to searching the internet or downloading shows illegally for most people, sad to say Hulu but now you suck.