Invite colleagues
In an interview in Australia, Rupert Murdoch accused Google of stealing stories from News Corporation newspapers for the Google News service, and said he might ban them once he introduces charges for the papers' online editions. But if he does this, doesn't it mean his newspaper wont be in the Google index and thus unable to be found by the online netizens searching for information via the search engines? Of course it does... but does this mean he might have a Machiavellian plan.. maybe the launch of a new Murdoch Search Engine...
Now this is complete speculation on my part but imagine if Mr Murdoch can secure the support of other news organizations (now this is difficult to image but consider it)... then all the best global news outlets are removed from the Google index... and say they all start to charge for online content...a pay-per-view wall. What would that do to the current dominate position of Google?
But here is why I think phase II would include a new Murdoch Engine.... News Corp could put all their news content on a new 'vertical news search' perhaps a higher quality version of today's Google News. That way, Mr Murdoch will have a platform that:
- starves Google (and other search engines) of content
- provides third party advertising revenue onto an ad platform in which Murdoch controls
- can position as a high-quality vertical news search experience - won't carry poor news content - meaning non News Corp content (or those news agencies that don't join this initiative)
- allows subscription incomes to be returned back into his organization (and funding the news gathering/reporting)
- returns the balance of power to the news makers and reporters... not the aggregators
Of course, this is idea is the result of too much coffee and an over active mind... however if this plan is indeed reflective of discussions in the News Corp Boardroom, then I fear we will soon be seeing the demise of freely distributed news content...
So lets wait and watch.. will we soon be using the Muchdoch Search platform to find what's the latest local news?
Written on Tuesday, 10 November 2009 22:26 by Matt McDougall
