Murdoch, Microsoft May Team Up to Challenge Google
Over the last decade, Google has ballooned into the many-headed online hydra we know it to be today, and despite grumblings about monopolies and a couple of legal tussles, the company's viselike grip has seemed assured for years to come However, News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch might be gearing up (continued) .
Over the last decade, Google has ballooned into the many-headed online hydra we know it to be today, and despite grumblings about monopolies and a couple of legal tussles, the company’s viselike grip has seemed assured for years to come. However, News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch might be gearing up to challenge Google’s market dominance.
Murdoch is making noises about blocking News Corp. content from showing up in Google searches; instead, stories culled from The Wall Street Journal and other publications under his corporation’s umbrella would appear exclusively under Microsoft’s Bing search engine results.
So what’s Murdoch thinking? The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson offers some suggestions here. –KA
Dig, Root, GrowBloomberg:
News Corp. is considering blocking Google Inc.’s Internet search engine from displaying its news articles and is talking to Microsoft Corp. about listing only on its site, according to people familiar with the matter.
The talks with Microsoft are still at an early stage and may not result in an agreement, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft is also talking to other publishers, one of the people said.
Microsoft is seeking exclusive content to draw users to its Bing search engine in an industry dominated by Google, which has about six times as many U.S. users. News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch said this month he may block Google from scanning and indexing stories from his newspapers, which include the Wall Street Journal and Times of London.
The Wall Street Journal charges users for access to its Web site. Murdoch has said he plans to start online subscriptions for all of News Corp.’s newspapers.
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Let's try this again, shall we? The New York Times has experimented in the past with the idea of charging for content, and starting later this month the Grey Lady is launching a new pay-to-play plan and squirreling most of what's fit to print behind a firewall.
In the future, news junkies may be willing to pay a subscription fee to get their fix, but judging by what's happening over at Long Island's Newsday newspaper, that time has not come. According to The New York Observer, after three months, only 35 people had signed up to have full access to newsday.com for $260 a year.
The British government is planning to "significantly reduce" the country's online file-sharing of copyrighted content, by at least 50 percent, in the next three years through a sequence of warning letters, Internet account suspensions and ultimate expulsion from Internet access.
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