Haven't we learned that online wars do not achieve value. Browser wars - mobile fragmentation, and now the Murdoch gambit. We will come out and say this is a bad thing for the internet-sphere.
Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation, has stated that he wants to pull his content off of Google. Naturally, this makes Microsoft's Steve Balmer salivate. An interesting strategy unfolds; if you can't beat Google - bribe the content providers to block their material from Google. Pay Murdoch to shut off the Wall Street Journal content from Google and anyone else. Then of course, Google would counter by having the New York Times remove their content from Bing - and on and on. And who loses - You Do as you content with content fragmentation.
Two articles that state the pro/con case:
with interesting comments by:Forbes Magazine' Velocity "How Murdock can kill Google"
New York Times Opinionator "Murdochs Google Gambit"
John Battelle, “Just give Google summary text and headlines to index (like the W.S.J. does now). Then do your best to convert would be readers to your paid model. That’s it. What’s the big deal? The rest is bluster." Yes yes, provide great content found no where else that consumers will want to buy...
Mark Cuban, "I love to tweak all the internet information must be free bigots. They get so damn religious about information on the net that they lose what little objectivity and awareness of the real world they had in the first place." Sounds like he enjoys stirring the pot..."
Mr.Cuban goes on... "TWITTER AND FACEBOOK are platforms that allow the news sources, like newscorp to post breaking news and gain value from their brand." We agree, Twitter could be the best source of breaking news and quick ready access to the content... Leverage these platforms instead of rattling swords at Google.
Jason Calacanis, however, says "Murdoch is savvy." and goes on to imagine Bing advertising that states,
"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!" We can't imagine a worse case -- trust? More likely it is content that we paid for... which does not lend credibility to content.
We believe that any means of blocking content from one search engine, in favor of another will ultimately backfire. Google won't die from this gambit and Microsoft won't win. Some savvy entrepreneur will develop a super-search engine that sits above the others helping us - the consumer of information to access content...without having to play favorites. And this gambit will not sell login access either. And if Murdoch thinks this will help save his "pulp" based product... and although we think this is sad... it won't. Newspaper subscriptions are declining (as are magazines) - so let's find better ways to monetize the content online... no one really wins a war.
