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About LinkBacksRead more.The FT reports Microsoft is in talks with News Corp to list its news content exclusively on Bing.
Read more.The FT reports Microsoft is in talks with News Corp to list its news content exclusively on Bing.
If only they'd tell him to get lost, and make him accept that making people pay for news is not going to be sustainable...
On a side note, if he de-lists from Google, I'd say he's making a pretty big mistake - a large proportion of the world use google as their sole portal to the web, and will just stop visiting any sites he removes from its listings, or at the very least use if far less often.
Bing and murdock together. Good - I can avoid all the rubbish just by sticking to google!
My sentiments exactlyOriginally Posted by cheesemp
It is sustainable though .... if you have high enough quality of unique content. News isn't just reporting of raw facts, but about access and to some extent, analysis.
There are those that have made access to content a sustainable financial model. But the key is that the content needs to be both unique and worth having, and by "worth" I mean worth what you pay for it. Whether that applies to Murdoch content or not is a whle different point, but the principle of paying for access works.
And even in more general areas, I wouldn't be too sure that just because a lot of content always has been "free" (usually in that it's ad-supported) that t will continue to be so. The internet is, after all, still pretty young and the commercial aspects of it, and how it fits into the traditional media world. For instance, it may be that if you provide an information service people want, the basics may be free and ad-supported, but the detail and analysis could be subscription-based. or paid for with a micro-payment system.
We're used to free content, but don't be so sure that it'll stay that way. It may, but it may not. Early days yet.
I realise that it technically is, I just don't think that it's something that could ever work in practice.
The BBC will always provide free news, unless Murdoch manages to destroy it (and I imagine there would be massive fallout from any attempt like that), which will always remain a thorn in their side. Supposing Sky News and The Sun went subscription only, I really doubt that many people would be grabbing their credit cards to retain access to them, and readership would plummet.
Obviously they'll always have their core audience, but I'll still read the odd story on The Sun's website if I see a link on a forum somewhere - there's no way I'd do that if I had to pay. Then there's their phalanx of readers in terms of the physical paper, but would they pay for two forms of effectively the same stories? I doubt it somehow. People would just migrate to other online services, which would then benefit from the increased traffic and probably succeed as a result. The only loser would be the firm that decided to go subscription-only first.
I accept that if they all moved that model simultaneously then it might be a possibility, but as things stand I think the early adopter is always going to be the loser, because someone will always be looking to pick up those who were left behind and offer them a new home for free. People aren't used to paying for things on the internet (short of *ahem* "certain" websites), and I don't think that Murdoch, with all the will in the world, can change that at the moment.
Meh, by any right thinking measure, it should be the news companies who pay the search engines, it is the search engines which point people to their sites, which in turn, generates revenue for the news sites.
Oh, and 'analysis' == spin, I'm not interested in news commentary, just the events itself, if I remotely care about what's being reported, I can dig into it further myself, minus the bias.
That said, with News Corp. blocking google, that can only improve the quality of the results, so I'm happy enough.
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