The Inquisitr » rupert murdoch

Microsoft once more proves you can indeed buy stupidity

Steven Hodson — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:51:01 +0000

I am not sure if you can put a price on stupidity or not; but I am pretty sure that if you could weasel out of Steve Ballmer how much this possible getting into bed with the newspaper giants is going to cost you’d have a pretty good idea.

When the news broke late yesterday it quickly became the topic of choice for just about all the tech pundits out there. Even Duncan here at The Inquisitr has his say about the idea but while I wouldn’t go to the extreme of suggesting a boycott of Microsoft or Bing I will say that if this is indeed true this has to be the dumbest idea on so many levels that my neck hurts from shaking my head so much.

To understand just how stupid this inane idea is we need to look at all the players involved in a debacle just waiting to happen.

Google

The short end of this is that no agreement between Microsoft with News Corp, or any number of news organizations that are stupid enough to go this route, is going to have any longterm detrimental effects on Google.

When it comes to Google it has built its fortune around the Long Tail of the Web, not against the fluctuation of an ever decreasing time frame, or value, of the “news” cycle. The search giant knows that it is extremely hard to sell advertising against information that loses its relevancy almost as soon as it is posted.

Its recent rumblings within the real-time web isn’t so much as living up to their ethos of indexing all the information on the Internet as much as it is about not letting Microsoft have all the marbles in the playground. Unlike any deals being cut with newspapers; so that they can continue to prop up an industry in severe trouble, making deals with real-time web services is more of where the web is heading and as such it makes sense to Google to be in that space.

As Kent Newsome, along with a bunch of other smart folks, points out people are forgetting the power of the verb and human being’s general apathy and inertia.

Here’s the thing: people are going to use Google, that’s why it’s a verb. If you take your content out of the Google search results, people won’t see it. Merchants go where the people are, not the other way around.

Google knows this and it also knows that what ever is published to the web will eventually make its way into its search index. Real-time or Long Tail it doesn’t matter to Google as long as they can successfully sell advertising against any and all search results.

News Corp and the other desperate Susans of the News Industry

The whole argument being put forward by Rupert Murdoch and the other news industry barons that Google; and the other minor players in the search business, are nothing but bloodsuckers destroying the news business sounds like a bunch of whiny boys threatening to take their bat and balls and go home.

As much as they carry on about the evilness of Google nobody is listening, or caring, any more. We’re all too busy reading the news on sites that are trying to understand and deal with the new way of doing business. Along with that we are reading blogs, reading our Facebook pages and following links to interesting stuff just as we are also doing on Twitter.

And this is one of the major points that the news industry seems to have failed to understand. People don’t go to Google to search for specific news organization’s latest headline. People use Google, or other search companies, to search for ALL of the news about the latest breaking event; or they go to the actual news site itself.

The idea that this is some sort of salvation that will see newspapers finally lift the veil of disaster that is hanging over them is nothing short of delusional. The delivery of news is changing and it is no longer the private fiefdom of an exclusive bunch of rich pricks who think that can buy and sell the world.

Rupert Murdoch acting as the cheerleader of this idea of search engines paying for access doesn’t give a shit about the effect long term of any deals created using this idea. He doesn’t care one iota about the journalists who still don’t know half the time on a day to day basis if they are going to have a job the next day just because Murdoch and his ilk only care about making sure their bottom line isn’t endangered.

This is all about Murdoch being able to keep maintaining control over his media empire while he is alive and he doesn’t care about the survivability of his competitors beyond his opportunity to buy them. Being able to force Internet companies like Google, and Microsoft’s Bing, to pay him the ransom he wants is only a feather in Rupert’s cap – nothing more.

Microsoft

First off I can totally understand why Microsoft would even consider going down this road. That said I think it could be one of the most stupidest things ever conceived of at the company under Steve Ballmer’s stewardship.

As Duncan noted in his post Microsoft has come a long way since its days of being the epitome of evil in just about everyone’s eyes. If this is actually something that Microsoft is seriously considering they could wipe out just about all the good work that has been down to revitalize the company in the public’s eyes.

This whole thing strikes me as nothing more that Microsoft having to pay protectionist money in order to not become totally inconsequential in the search market. The problem is that once Microsoft hands over that first payment they are screwed on so many levels as it is a payment that they can’t take back and will only become the first of a non-stop stream of cash flowing out to the robber barons of news.

One of the biggest dangers that this move by Microsoft could create, as Alex Wilhelm at The Next Web notes, a dangerous precedent that we could never go back from.

Doing so would set a precedent that content should charge search engines for the right to be spidered. What you are doing is just that, attempting to buy exclusive rights to News Corp online. This is the proverbial slippery slope.

Openness is one of the most important concepts on the internet. If you create content, it is searchable. Google brought this revolution, and made the internet not just live up to its potential, but made it useable. Pre-functioning search, the internet was just an idea with potential. Search unlocked the dragon, in the best way possible.

By beginning to close search, by hitting other engines with a dollar-war, you, Microsoft, are going to destroy the open internet. If News Corp wants to not play, fine. Let them leave. They will suffer more than they are supposing. But by paying to get an exclusive, you are tearing the fabric of the free exchange of content and ideas that the internet stands on.

For a company that has been making great stride to change the perception of it this idea of buying search results on such a scale the effects would be disastrous. As many have pointed out the calls for a boycott of Microsoft and Bing would start faster than the ink could dry on any deals.

Us: the netizens.

The newspaper industry isn’t suffering this crisis for no reason. We have found new, and in some cases better ways to get our news and most of the time it has nothing to do with newspapers or even news television. We have also discovered that discovering our news doesn’t have to cost us money.

This would change that if only for a short period of time. We are already seeing calls for the return of the paywall with the deluded belief that people – in general – will pay to read the news and that this is the only way for the news industry to survive.

It has nothing to do with the survivability of the news because that will always be there but it has everything to do with big corporations playing power games with us stuck in the middle.

What these companies; Microsoft, Google, and the news industry on a whole, have forgotten is that the game is changing and we are a whole lot mouthier than we use to be. As major contributors to all these companies, whether it be with money or content, we have a say in this as well and for the first time we have the tools to make them listen.

While this is a bad idea for the search industry and most importantly for Microsoft and does nothing more than extend the period of life-support for the news industry it also is bad for us as the lifeblood of the Internet.

Sitting lurking and watching the disaster unfold isn’t an option. We need to tell Microsoft in loud voices that this isn’t an acceptable idea. Hell even if it means using Bing before any deals are made if only to show Microsoft that they don’t need to do this to be successful we need to speak up and stop this idea dead in its tracks.

If we don’t we are the only one’s who will pay the price. Not Microsoft, not Google, and most definitely not the news industry.

What’s Old is New: Why Murdoch Doesn’t Get New Media

Duncan Riley — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:59:42 +0000

Much has been written online over the last two days following News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch’s chit-chat with Sky News Australia (see our coverage here and here.)

There’s a ton a different points that can be dissected and debated in the interview, but there was one thing Murdoch said that has been bugging me since I heard him say it: “no web sites anywhere in the world make serious money.”

I don’t dispute that the statement is wrong, but it lacks context and a broader understanding of the space. The obvious point is the definition of “serious money,” which to Murdoch means the hundreds of millions that News Corp makes. He’s entitled to define serious that way, but in reflecting on that we need only to take a look at the rise of News Corp to see that the “serious” money he talks about was a short term aberration over the much longer period of media as a whole.

The News Corp story is one of those Australian fairytale stories that many in Australia know something about. But the best history I’ve read recently came from an American, in the form of Michael Wolff’s biography “The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch.”

The biography charts the rise of Murdoch from his inheritance of a single Adelaide newspaper through to the takeover by News Corp of the Wall Street Journal. The book places in context the newspaper (and broader media) industry as it was, and how Murdoch came to change the scene as part of the rise of the media barons in the late 70s and 1980s.

It details succinctly how newspapers were previously often small or family run affairs, often without huge profits or managed to their full potential. Couple to this was the stratospheric rise in newspaper advertising throughout the 1980’s, and the media consolidation as smaller outlets closed or sold out.

Indeed you could say that before the likes of Rupert Murdoch, no one was making serious money from newspapers. Where have we heard that line before?

Unlike newspapers, many with histories going back hundreds of years, the current crop of new media startups are often only years old. This is a time of immense competition online where new models are being experimented on, with the successful models being used as a basis to grow and expand (see AOL for one classic example.) Some are making money, others aren’t, but of course none are making “serious” money yet, just like newspapers once weren’t either.

Perhaps in old age, and combined with a self professed obsession with print, Murdoch can’t see the parallels starring him in the face?

Bronwen Clune told the Media140 conference in Sydney last week that she doesn’t like the label of new media because what we label new media really is just a part of the broader media landscape. Not only was she right, I’d extend that further, because although the online nature may make it new of sorts, the progression of the industry really isn’t anything of the sort, because what we’ve seen in the past with heritage media is now being reflected online, be it at a much faster pace.

Online media may not be making “serious” money yet, but what’s to stop a 21st century Murdoch buying up online outlets to create an entity that does make serious money, or for an existing conglomerate to grow and compete with the media of old? History can and does repeat itself, rich with the knowledge of those that have succeeded and failed before.

(Image: Department of the Internets)

Epic Win: News Corp Likely To Remove Content From Google

Duncan Riley — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:11:40 +0000

News Corp founder and CEO Rupert Murdoch has told an interview with Sky News Australia that News Corp will likely remove News Corp content from Google.

The revelation came early in the interview, after Murdoch claimed that Google and others are stealing News Corp content in response to a question about who he was talking about when he talked about plagiarists. “The people who simply pick up everything to run with, and steal our stories…they just take them..without payment. That’s Google, Microsoft, Ask.com..a whole lot of people.”

Murodch claimed that readers who visit News Corp sites via search offer little value to advertisers, and that News Corp would rather have fewer people coming to their websites, but paying. Asked why News hasn’t made its sites invisible to Google, Murdoch replied: “I think we will….but that’s when we start charging.”

Murdoch also claims that News Corp believes that the doctrine of Fair Use can be challenged in court and “barred altogether.”

As Mumbrella notes, many sites (including this one) have called on News Corp and others to use Robots.txt to take their content out of Google, a simple change that would put to bed the Google stealing our content argument once and for all.

The full interview as follows:

Sky Player comes to Xbox 360 in UK [UPDATE]

Chris Greenhough — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:55:36 +0000

[UPDATE: We have prices, people!

£25 - Sky Sports 1 OR Sky Sports 2 + Sky Sports Xtra
£34 - Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 + Sky Sports Xtra
£24 - Sky Movies Screen 1 OR Screen 2
£32 - Sky Movies Screen 1 + Screen 2
£33 - One movie channel + one sports channel + Sky Sports Xtra
£38 - One movie channel + all sports channels, OR vice versa, + Sky Sports Xtra
£41 - All sports and movie channels
From £9 per month extra - ESPN]

Us British Xbox 360 owners have a popular bugbear we like to complain about: how come our U.S. counterparts get to enjoy Netflix on their consoles? Hm? HOW COME, Microsoft?

Well, now we’re even, sort of. Today in the UK, Sky was launched on Xbox Live and NOT THE U.S., meaning Gold members with at least 2Mb broadband and a Sky subscription can watch some free channels on Microsoft’s box, including Sky One, MTV and Sky Arts.

If you haven’t already subscribed to Rupert Murdoch’s no-doubt-evil satellite TV service, than you can do so for £15 per month. Naturally, both subscribers and non-subscribers can pay more money for additional channels. There are 24 in total, and while solid information on pricing is difficult to find, I do know that having all the sports channels added to your package will be an extra £19.

That’s … pretty pricey, yet I’m still terribly tempted by the idea of watching Sky Sports in my own room.

[Via ElectricPig]

Are we all watching the world’s biggest game of bluff poker?

Steven Hodson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:54:35 +0000

The newspaper world is changing and struggling to find its way online in a fashion that will see the leaders of the conglomerates that own them maintain their wealth and power. Zachary M. Seward on the Nieman Journalism Lab blog thinks that The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are heavy into the quietest newspaper war in the country.

As papers like the Globe suffer, the Journal and the Times are engaged in a pitched but unusually quiet battle for readers outside the New York metro area who might be persuaded to abandon their local dailies. In a small development on Friday, the Times announced a deal that will extend newsstand sales and home delivery of the newspaper to Nashville, Tenn. That becomes the 26th North American city where the Times is printed, and I’ve mapped them above.

Both the Times and the Journal are working to make themselves more appealing as first-read newspapers for national readers in largely affluent markets.

Meanwhile Ryan Tate at Gawker: Valleywag lets us know that both Rupert Murdoch and Steven Brill are promising to have all their newspapers charging for content by next year.

Today in the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz writes that there’s an "emerging consensus" that Murdoch and Brill are leading the way to the future, in which people pay to read news on the Web. The only trouble: Whichever publishers are first to charge for content will be first to see their Web traffic drop — like 90% — if they wall off everything to just subscribers. Especially if their competitors don’t also erect their own paywalls. It could be catastrophic for smaller brands who wall off their content while everyone stays free.

Beating the drum of paywalls Murdoch is quoted in a Financial Times post saying

"We intend to charge for all our news websites," Mr Murdoch said.

"If we’re successful, we’ll be followed by all media," he added, predicting "significant revenues" from charging for differentiated news online.

Here’s the thing though, as Tate noted in his post the first company to actually cross that line and erect paywalls across all their online news outlets is going to take a heavy hit because people at this point will not fork over their hard earned money for something they can get elsewhere for free. It’s not like Murdoch and Brill can get together over dinner and decide on a day and time where both their online news empires start charging money. Well they could but if they got caught the penalties because of antitrust laws would make it a painful exercise – not to mention potentially very expensive.

So here we have two the biggest players in the newspaper industry threatening to start making people pay for the news; but who’s going to do it first and take the hit they have to know will come as a result?

Then can that person be assured that the other(s) will do the same or will they bask in the increase of traffic that will come at the expense of their competitor?

Who is going to blink first?

Memo to newspapers: Please, please follow Murdoch example.

Steven Hodson — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:00:51 +0000

Would it be safe to say that we could be looking at either the revival of fee charging online newspapers that will nickel and dime us for the piecemeal delivery of news, or could we be seeing the signing of their own death warrants. With the news from the News Industry Mount and the lips of it’s most powerful mouthpiece the new commandments of how online news will make its money has been pronounced by the mighty Rupert Murdoch.

In all the news last week was his announcement that all News Corp properties would start instituting a paywall of varying degrees and if you wanted anything beyond the fluff they deign to be free then you had better be ready to start coughing up more than your outrage.

For England this sill start with The Times and Sunday Times as soon as November, with the rest of the UK titles getting all dressed up with paywall access by June 2010. In the US Murdoch plans on using the model that the Wall Street Journal does for News Corp properties in the States – totally ignoring the fact that the WSJ actually produces enough quality and unique content that it is worth paying for. The same can not be said for 99% of the rest of the papers in the US let alone the ones controlled by Murdoch.

The thing is that we are approaching a point where it is a case of shit or get off the pot for the newspaper industry. IT is time for both them and us, the consumers, to once and for all make it clear which model is going to work when it comes to the collection and dissemination of the news. Will it be the Murdoch’s of the world with their billion dollar empires that are built around deciding what news deserves to get published and as a result increase their profit margins.

Or will it be the world of journalists, and their recently discovered brethren the bloggers and other citizen reporters, who believe that the news is free but discover new and different ways to use their skill and knowledge to earn a living at the same time.

Martin Bryant says in a post on TheNextWeb.com

So, it’s a case of ‘Work for free and die’ or ‘Charge and probably die’.

I don’t think it is either because that is assuming that there aren’t other business models that negate either of those two options – we just haven’t found them yet; but that doesn’t mean they are out there. Nor does it mean that news has to be distributed the same old Murdoch way that involves charging readers for the right to read News Corps interpretation of the news.

In the end I hope that every single newspaper out there decides to follow the Murdoch way and start slapping up paywalls. Then we’ll see exactly how much people are willing to pay over and over for the same news from different organizations. If anything this move to institute paywalls may actually force the issue in such a way that as people have to decide who of all the newspapers that are available globally is worthy of any money from their limited resources.

This forcing of the paywall system could have the opposite effect of hastening the demise of newspapers because they are to concerned with maintaining their status quo rather than trying to discover new and better ways of monetizing what is basically nothing more than a distribution chain.

So please all you newspaper editors and owners go right ahead and institute paywalls and the sooner the better so we can get this stupid argument settled once and for all.

image courtesy of TheNextWeb.com

All News Corp news sites to start charging

Steven Hodson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:13:44 +0000

Well it looks like Rupert Murdoch didn’t get Chris Anderson’s memo about everything on the Internet being free.

Word is that the News Corp chairman told analysts in a earnings conference call that while the newspaper industry has to change to keep up with the time it doesn’t mean that everything will be free – especially his newspapers.

"The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution," Mr Murdoch said.

"But it has not made content free. Accordingly we intend to charge for all our news websites," he said.

He said News Corp would use the Wall Street Journal’s online vehicle as a model.

"The extended downturn has only increased the drumbeat for change," he said, arguing that classified advertising for online news would never reach the levels once offered by print.

"Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content, is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting," Mr Murdoch said.

Source: Business Spectator :: News Corp to charge for all news websites

Time to get the comfy chair and popcorn ready because the blogosphere is sure to get going full force pontificating over this news.

Murdoch pontificates: Papers will be digital in 10 years

Steven Hodson — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:45:00 +0000

Ah good old Rupert Murdoch the king of News Corp decides to share with us his prognostications about where newspapers could end up 10 years down the road. The short form for those of you in a hurry – communications, and this includes newspapers, is changing totally and because we are moving into a digital age we will see big changes coming to the newspaper industry.

Duh!

For the fuller version here is the ‘print bite’ from PaidContent

- On digital papers: Within ten years, I believe nearly all newspapers will be delivered to you digitally, either on your PC or a new—on a development of the Kindle, shall we say. … Something that’s quite mobile, you can take around with you. Communications are changing totally. We’re moving into a digital age, and it’s going to change newspapers. But if you’ve got a newspaper with a great name and a great reputation, and you trust it, the people in that community are going to need access to your source of news. What we call newspapers today, I call news organizations, journalistic enterprises, if you will. They’re the source of news. And people will reach it if it’s done well, whether they do it on a BlackBerry or a Kindle or a PC. … I think people will miss a great deal not getting everything that you get in the newspaper. You may not read everything in it, but your eye catches things, and you learn things you didn’t expect to learn. And I think we’ll get back to that when we get these mobile readers that you carry whole newspapers on them.”

And just to flesh out your day here is a portion of his interview on Fox Business (which he owns)

It’s nice to see old rich people catching on to the way things are changing isn’t it?

Murdoch says to get ready to pay up

Steven Hodson — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:19:33 +0000

Rupert Murdoch, the man behind News Corp, says that it’s time to fix a “malfunctioning” business model when it comes to online news – specifically his newspapers. To do this he is expected to follow the Wall Street Journal subscription model and expect us to open up our wallets for his other online newspapers. This move to fix what he sees as a problem will happen within the year.

Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal’s experience," he said.

Source: Guardian Online (still free)

The only problem with this is that as smart as Murdoch might be he seems to be missing the global nature of the Web. The world of newspapers, especially the ones that made Murdoch insanely rich, on the other hand are for the most part regional. Exceptions do exist where some newspapers have broken through this regional limitation much as Murdoch’ Wall Street Journal has. It is also a paper that many people are willing to pay a subscription for. This mentality doesn’t apply to the other 99% of newspapers that are online.

The idea that readers are going to be willing to pay a subscription for the same news that they can find at a hundred other news sites, blogs or otherwise, is just a little hard to see happening. While news is pretty well unique the interpretation or presentation of it isn’t. There is nothing in the way news is presented on the web that would make it a commodity that people will be willing to pay for.

The Wall Street Journal is unique among online news properties and is a member of a very exclusive club. That doesn’t mean though that Murdoch is going to be able to turn the rest of his news properties into the same kind of thing. In trying to do that all he will be doing is creating another Wall Street Journal. Just how many of those do we need in this day and age?

I thought so .. good luck with that plan Rupert.

Murdoch targets Google over Google News, lawsuit to follow?

Duncan Riley — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:23:02 +0000

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch targeted Google on Thursday over the use of newspaper headlines in Google News.

Murdoch rhetorically asked an industry event in Washington D.C., “Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?” going on to respond “‘Thanks, but no thanks.”

Gregory Rutchik, chairman of The Arts and Technology Law Group told Forbes that this could be the precursor to something more: “Murdoch wants to be paid for his newspaper assets. His statements may be a precursor to a lawsuit that would bring Google to the bargaining table to figure out just how to do that.”

Google has always rightly claimed that their use of headlines and short extracts constitutes fair use. Google also notes that they send 300 million page views to newspaper sites every month.

Because all good stories should end with a kook, Anthony Moor, deputy managing editor of the Dallas Morning News Online and a director of the Online News Association told Forbes “I wish newspapers could act together to negotiate better terms with companies like Google. Better yet, what would happen if we all turned our sites off to search engines for a week? By creating scarcity, we might finally get fair value for the work we do.”

Why make it a week? make it permanent, because there’s just going to be such a great big void of news online. Must. Stop. Laughing.

Jon Stewart calls Rupert Murdoch a 14 Year Old Girl (video)

Duncan Riley — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:35:12 +0000

Jon Stewart had Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff on The Daily Show last night, and he didn’t hold back in letting the jokes fly in Murdoch’s direction.

Stewart called Murdoch humdrum and hormonal, a letdown from the Citizen Kane figure he’d been expecting and better still, a 14 year old girl.

The Jon Stewart Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff video below:

Murdoch: newspapers will survive, but physical format irrelevant

Duncan Riley — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:03:56 +0000

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch delivered the annual Boyer Lecture on Australia’s ABC Sunday, and while he was positive on the future for newspapers, it’s what he had to say about print editions which makes the talk interesting.

In “The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees,” Murdoch said that doomsayers who are predicting the Internet will kill off newspapers are “misguided cynics” who fail to grasp that the online world is potentially a huge new market of information-hungry consumers.

Newspapers are already a “source that people can trust,” Murdoch said, giving them an advantage over new mediums such as bloggers reports The Editors Weblog.

The key line though is Murdoch’s admission that the days of the print edition of newspapers are numbered.

“We are moving from news papers to news brands,” he said, and added that while the form of delivery may change, “the potential audience for our content will multiply many times over”.

Mr Murdoch summed it up by saying: “I like the look and feel of newsprint as much as anyone. But our real business isn’t printing on dead trees. It’s giving our readers great journalism and great judgement.”

Murdoch is right: smart newspapers today will become smart online “news brands” of tomorrow. While many are quick to write off newspapers altogether, there is still no reasonable argument I have seen that says that some newspapers can’t turn into online only news sites. The only thing we could argue about is using the term “newspaper” altogether when the last newspaper printing press in the western world prints its last edition, but for all intents and purposes this is semantics based on format, not the actual news producing body.