Can Rupert Murdoch Really Hurt Google?

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on November 24, 2009 at 9:43pm

In addition to WSJ, some other news papers considering de-indexing Google Read more

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Permalink Reply by Chris Theisen on November 24, 2009 at 11:54pm

This is the single dumbest thing I've heard on so many levels. Why would someone go to Bing to type in a search instead of Google? Im sure there are reasons but none of them have to do with being able to see Wall Street Journal show up in the rankings. If someone cared that much about the Wall Street Journal they may already be getting email alerts, feeds or visit the site directly anyways. The people who use Google will use Google the people who like Bing will use Bing regardless of what sites they list. This is a bunch of rich guys playing high school.

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Permalink Reply by PK Koduri on November 25, 2009 at 9:14am

I would love to see what happens. Too many sites like Huff Post, Google News, and other popular blogs have been getting a free ride by citing content that they did not produce. All this talk about how News papers should innovate and find better pricing models is old. They should have never allowed to let their content be available free online to begin with. I never liked Murdoch or any of his media outlets other than WSJ whose editorial page I do not really care for. I used to pay for the online subscription but just use the Public Library now. As a fan of game theory this is just the first move in a multi-stage negotiation game. Murdoch made the first move and other News organizations will join him. This will only lead to some kind of a refined revenue sharing model between Search Engines like Google and Media Outlets like News Corps.

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Karr on November 25, 2009 at 1:13pm

If Murdoch does, indeed, block Google, it will have a negligible impact. Networks and blogs will still pick up the stories and point to 3rd party blogs and other niche news sites.

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Permalink Reply by PK Koduri on November 25, 2009 at 1:39pm

What Murdoch does may have little impact but someone had to start trying to change the status-quo. Bloggers for the most part have gotten a free ride. Most just cite other news gathering organizations and rely on them for the most part. Unless they by which I mean bloggers can come up with a way to corroborate their stories most of what they will never be considered serious journalism.

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Karr on November 25, 2009 at 1:49pm

Hmmm... I'm not arguing whether or not we need serious journalists PK. Within the social media space, you'll find that I'm the rare advocate of professional journalism. I'm arguing that this move will hurt newspapers, not help them.

I'm confident that the average newspaper gets a very good portion of its traffic via search engines. If they aren't getting great search traffic, they can make a minor investment and get there. Without search traffic, they can't charge the advertising rates based on the number of 'eyeballs' coming to them. Without advertising revenue, you can't pay journalists. Without journalists, you don't have newspapers.

90%+ of internet sessions incorporate search. Murdoch is missing a critical strategy here by not only ignoring search, but threatening to remove that strategy altogether. It's not going to hurt Google.

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Permalink Reply by PK Koduri on November 25, 2009 at 2:22pm

I am not disagreeing with you Doug. As I mentioned in a previous comment this is a classic game theory case. Murdoch fired the first salvo and we will probably see many more in the days to come. What I am suggesting is that it is time for content creators to be let in on some of the revenue which the search giant and other blogging websites have been keeping to themselves. To me this is the only way News Papers can get out of the downward spiral of dwindling revenues. Having said that this play might hurt News Corp in the short run, but if they survive the company will emerge much stronger. The question is does he have the deep pockets to survive? Is this where MS and Bing subsidize?

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Karr on November 25, 2009 at 2:29pm

Agreed.

With so many businesses and site seeking great content, it makes also me wonder why newspapers don't do what they are truly great at... providing great content. Asking me to pay for a newspaper full of advertisements is one thing. But asking a site owner if he'd like to hire the professional journalists at a newspaper to supply content could be a lucrative change in business.

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on November 27, 2009 at 10:20am

Does this remind anyone of what happened to the music biz once Napster came along? Once content is digital, it can be made accessible to everyone...and once that happens, the biz game changes from a scarcity model to an abundance model. Google wants to pour gas on the abundance model, but not to the demise of content producers. Content producers need to find ways to play the new game profitably. The problem is that few if any can figure out how to protect their traditional business models while growing the digital side. And if they can't keep their traditional side profitable, they don't have as much money to use to produce great content. Downward spiral for massive content producers seems inevitable, no?

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Permalink Reply by Robby Slaughter on November 26, 2009 at 3:22pm

What will hopefully happen is that Google will stop rewarding people for duplicate content. For example, let's say that I decided to quote Pat's most recent blog post:

MyColts.net launched a new promotion last week in which title sponsor, RCA, is giving away flat-screen TVs for the fans who write the best blogs. RCA is asking Colts fans to talk about what it’s like to watch Colts games on TV, and how much better their experiences would be if they had a brand new TV set from RCA.

Google should not give me credit for the content in that paragraph. It shouldn't be considered "new." If anything, it should increase the credibility of the original source because I quoted it.

Up until now, Google hasn't really punished duplicate content too much except when it is extreme. That's probably because it's hard to check to see if any piece of content has ever been published anywhere else in history. But perhaps this will help to solve the issue!

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Karr on November 27, 2009 at 12:15am

That's a tough one, Robby. How does Google ensure the intent there? If you repeat Pat's content and Google can figure out that the original source or earliest posting of that content was a site, perhaps duplicate content should be used to reward the originator for the quoting of that content.

Of course there's the opposite side, too. People abuse the loophole on duplicate content by publishing across a multitude of web sites to increase overall ranking. I wish those guys would get penalized sooner - but I'm not holding my breath. It's virtually impossible to define the intent of the publisher.

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