Quote :

"Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry. The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage. However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a243c8b2-d79b-11de-b578-00144feabdc0.html


This is terrible for the consumer. Imagine an internet where content is exclusive to one search engine or another.

11/23/2009 12:07:52 PM

on the other hand, imagine a news industry where no one can afford to pay reporters for anything other than the most popular stories.

11/23/2009 12:08:41 PM

I concur

11/23/2009 12:09:24 PM

NET NEUTRALITY

11/23/2009 12:10:13 PM

this should be fun

11/23/2009 12:13:17 PM

i mean do you guys really think the business model of "pay a bunch of people to create some stuff and then give it away for free" is sustainable?

[Edited on November 23, 2009 at 12:23 PM. Reason : j]

11/23/2009 12:23:20 PM

Wow, this won't end well...

11/23/2009 12:26:22 PM

Quote :

"imagine a news industry where no one can afford to pay reporters for anything other than the most popular stories."

Is this likely to happen, though? Newspapers are getting along well-enough and there's plenty of good journalism going on.

Quote :

"i mean do you guys really think the business model of "pay a bunch of people to create some stuff and then give it away for free" is sustainable?"

Newspapers sell ads. They sell newspapers, too. Heck, with Kindles and the like, they have a brand new opportunity.

And lets recall that this is New Corp making the news. Are they really hurting?

[Edited on November 23, 2009 at 12:34 PM. Reason : ]

11/23/2009 12:31:46 PM

Not really. The only newspapers that are getting along are the ones owned by the large conglomerates like newscorp. And thats only because Murdoch has other successful ventures (fox news) to subsidize the rest. If you give away your content for free what will eventually happen is that good reporting will die off and be replaced by things like fox news because its infinitely more profitable.

Small newspapers are going out of business as ad revenue goes to the web and circulation drops.

Ad supported means you must write content to sell the most ads.

11/23/2009 12:38:13 PM

web advertising is not profitable for the advertiser or the site hosting the ads. google charges a shitload of money to advertisers, and then passes on a pitance to the sites they actually display the ads on. Because google has a monopoly on search and web advertising, this isn't likely to change.

If many sites leave google for bing or whatever other engine, google would have to rethink their ad payments in order to get that content back.

11/23/2009 12:42:47 PM

Quote :

"Newspapers are getting along well-enough "

actually, the industry is dying. a few big market papers are doing ok, but overall, newspapers are going bankrupt left and right.

why buy papers when you can read the same content online for free?

11/23/2009 12:56:40 PM

I would have no problem paying for an ad-free experience.

The key word there being "ad-free."

11/23/2009 12:58:56 PM

the real issue here is that having News Corp site stuff on Bing or whatever isn't going to be something that lifts Bing above other search engines. the average net user won't care, they'll just go to whatever else moves to fill in the holes.

Murdoch is cutting off access to Google in spite of himself, not considering the realities of how people get to his news in the first place. He wants to control the on-ramps to his content, which has been shown to be a way to place yourself on the fast-track to irrelevance.

11/23/2009 1:04:05 PM

"Newspapers aren't doing as badly as you think."

http://www.slate.com/id/2233849/

11/23/2009 1:09:10 PM

holy crap, look at that guy rationalize! that article is full of lol's.

11/23/2009 1:14:39 PM

^^ thats the kind of shoddy reporting that we can expect from free sources.

He starts off with: newspapers will die because ads will all go to the web!

then he says: newspapers are so dumb! they've increased prices to make up for lack of advertising!!! this will only kill them off faster!

lastly he says: newspapers aren't dying because the new york times increased prices and it made up (somewhat) for their decrease in ad revenue.

all the while completely ignoring all the small newspapers that have already died off or cut back on reporting in order to stay alive



[Edited on November 23, 2009 at 1:20 PM. Reason : a]

11/23/2009 1:19:11 PM

Quote :

"all the while completely ignoring all the small newspapers that have already died off or cut back on reporting in order to stay alive"

Would a search engine agreement have saved them, though? Unlikely.

This just in: small players in a national market are being pushed out by large players! EXTRA, EXTRA!

11/23/2009 1:40:11 PM

This has happened in the telecom world twice. Both times we called it "Ma Bell."

11/23/2009 1:55:20 PM

I'm not against MS competing against Google. I'm against it artificially dividing the internet.

11/23/2009 1:56:49 PM

all division on the internet is artificial. the internet is artificial.

Quote :

"Would a search engine agreement have saved them, though? Unlikely. This just in: small players in a national market are being pushed out by large players! EXTRA, EXTRA!"

Except that newspapers are overwhelmingly regional, not national markets. And regional newspapers are dying FAST. I worked in the newspaper industry about 11 years ago, and even then the writing was on the walls. Everyone I worked with knew that the print newspaper was slowly becoming irrelevant.

What no one banked on was the insane growth of blogging.


Lemme help you guys understand how blogs have killed the newspaper industry, and why as a result its killing journalism:

The traditional newspaper content model works on the concept of aggregation+special interest. The AP and Reuters were created as aggregation agencies. Newspapers pay to become members, and are allowed to publish AP content. This traditionally made up 2/3 or so of a newspaper's daily content. The other third comes from staff, mostly small local articles, with usually one or two big production items per week coming from journalists with the actual newspaper. This content is shared BACK to the AP, where other newspapers pick it up and use it, keeping the model alive.

The key to all this is that each individual newspaper only had to create a TINY amount of content by itself, so it can focus on producing high quality, insightful journalism (that will go back to the AP). Every paper has an incentive to do a BETTER job, because the higher the quality of the products they produce, the more every paper succeeds.

Blogs on the other hand are neither regional, nor symbiotic. They aggregate content, similar to the AP model, but without charging for the service. They have almost nothing in common with newspapers, because blogs are inherently special interest, rather than general interest, and inherently global/national rather than regional.

The blogging model also makes it virtually impossible to product quality journalism. There is no incentive for a blog to worry about creating high quality content, because there is no financial incentive for quality. There is however a massive financial incentive for QUANTITY.

If you want to see a return to high quality journalism, and interesting, insightful news, then a new content model has to arise. There are actually some good examples of this, namely in product review and the web comic industries. Both are based around authors, rather than interests, and as a result create symbiotic industries (product review sites are rewarded for their in depth reviews, and in turn recognize the good work of others, and are financially backed by the product industries they cover) (web comics provide insight and comedic alternatives to news and events, and are financially backed by traditional book and periodical sales, as well as branding paraphernalia).

If newspapers (or blogs for that matter) want to survive long term, they need to figure out a way to reward high quality content contribution and punish shitty content. People quickly tires of shitty web comics, and discredit shitty product reviews, but commentary and here say are inherently non-objective. Finding a profitable separation of entertaining and informative is ultimately the big goal, but whether that's possible is the even bigger question.

11/23/2009 8:46:30 PM

I totally hear you on long-format news. It's dying because of the internet. It's a shame.

But how are search engines exacerbating the situation? There's symbiotic relationship between search engines and content providers. I can't think of any reason a newspaper wouldn't want to be indexed, and Google is the last company they should be trying to milk for cash.

Yes, the newspapers need to think of new ways of making revenue. This scheme is not the way. It will hurt the consumers and lead to less traffic for newspapers. The only entities it will benefit is Microsoft (who has now apparently ended the "fair and square" phase of its attempt to compete with Google) and a multinational media conglomerate.

Quote :

"all division on the internet is artificial. the internet is artificial."

Non sequitur much? What the hell is that even supposed to mean?

11/24/2009 12:02:29 AM

why is it a shame?

11/24/2009 12:18:03 AM

There's plenty of long-form journalism occurring exclusively online. Take Ars Technica as one example. They have plenty of standard-length articles on a variety of subjects, plus in-depth analysis and discussion of more interesting topics. And they're not unique in that, at all.

The one downside to Internet-based news sources is that a lot of them tend to skew either towards technology reporting or political reporting (often slanted one way or another). There's not really a great variety beyond that.

11/24/2009 12:26:35 AM

^^^ It means that there is no such thing as "artificially dividing the internet". There is nothing natural about the internet, so any change to it is artificial.

What you meant to say is that you are against information silos on the internet. There's a giant difference. And I can think of MANY reasons why, as a content provider, you wouldn't want to be indexed.

Forget newspapers for a minute. Do you blame the record companies for not allowing their music to be indexed and viewed for free, without restriction? Do you blame academic journals for not being indexed and viewed for free, without restriction?

You forget that TRAFFIC has never been the issue. REVENUE is the issue. Newspapers don't make money from traffic. Microsoft would essentially be paying News Corp for a subscription to their content, and would then attempt to defer that cost through advertising.

That means for the longterm, readers will get more content, of higher quality. The tradeoff? They would need to use a specific portal to access it. There's nothing new or earth shattering about it.

^^Because short-form news rewards quantity over quality, and rewards sensationalism over substance or accuracy. Think of it as books versus magazines... now imagine that books were all slowly turning into one page magazine articles... it's a shame.

^There isn't "plenty" taking place. Outside the worlds of technology and product discussions, and humor, it's a giant void. I don't know where you think there is long-form, journalistic political news online, because I've yet to see it aside from the traditional media outlets.

And you can't point to tech journalism as the answer, because it's in a unique position where the industry supports the journalism to fuel it's own popularity. And arguably that presents a conflict of interest in more than a few cases (though reputable sites like Ars take great care to avoid this).

[Edited on November 24, 2009 at 12:32 AM. Reason : .]

11/24/2009 12:28:25 AM

Quote :

"I don't know where you think there is long-form, journalistic political news online, because I've yet to see it aside from the traditional media outlets."

politico? daily beast? huffington post? slate? do i need to continue?

[Edited on November 24, 2009 at 12:36 AM. Reason : .]

11/24/2009 12:35:47 AM

Noen, no offense, but you typed yourself right past the point I was making. You agreed with it while disagreeing with it. I said that there's a fair amount of it online, BUT it's mostly limited in topic matter. Fairly simple.

11/24/2009 12:37:06 AM

Quote :

"politico? daily beast? huffington post? slate? do i need to continue?"

Are all short-form, political COMMENTARY and current-event blogs. VERY occasionally Slate and Huffington Post have published articles with some journalistic research.

But the fact that you don't even understand the difference (to be fair, it's muddy waters in political reporting) speaks volumes to the fact that the long-form report is LONG gone from American society.

^You made an ambiguous post, I clarified it

11/24/2009 2:46:18 AM

Quote :

"Forget newspapers for a minute. Do you blame the record companies for not allowing their music to be indexed and viewed for free, without restriction? Do you blame academic journals for not being indexed and viewed for free, without restriction?"

Your scenarios are not analogous. Google isn't serving content; it's linking to content. Google isn't allowing me to view news content "for free, without restriction." I have to go to the linked site and view the site's advertisements or pay their subscription.

For instance, Lala and JSTOR have no problem being indexed.

Quote :

"You forget that TRAFFIC has never been the issue. REVENUE is the issue. Newspapers don't make money from traffic. Microsoft would essentially be paying News Corp for a subscription to their content, and would then attempt to defer that cost through advertising."

Wait. Websites can't make money from traffic? Newspapers can't make money from online ads, but Microsoft can? Before I go any further, are you the guy who works for Microsoft and constantly shills for them? I can't keep track of the Tech Talk people.

11/24/2009 8:12:11 AM

holy batman!

but really, i'm enjoying this discussion

11/24/2009 8:15:01 AM

Google and other ad brokers make money by selling ad space to advertisers at a premium.

Websites make money by giving google ad space on their websites for almost nothing. There is a massive disparity between what google charges the advertiser and what they pass on to the site displaying the ad.

Unless you're hugely popular and your consumers are dumb enough to click ads, you wont make any money. As it turns out the stories that are most popular are the ones consumed by people dumb enough to click ads. So instead of writing shit that is good, you write shit that will be popular.

Web advertising, SEO, and other bullshit marketting crazes are leftovers from the .com bubble.

11/24/2009 9:16:34 AM

Quote :

"So instead of writing shit that is good, you write shit that will be popular."

This is an entirely new phenomenon.

Invented by Google.

11/24/2009 9:20:19 AM

Obviously google didn't create the concept, but they're certainly moving it forward.

I mean look at cable vs broadcast tv. Cable exists because people are willing to pay extra for content that isn't popular. The google version of the internet is broadcast tv. Sure there are a few good shows here and there, but the majority is shit. Then you move up to cable and you get much more specialized shows. And then you move on to the premium channels and suprise suprise its the best content.

11/24/2009 9:33:53 AM

Network news v. cable news.

Championing the quality of cable TV isn't bolstering your argument.


And again, I'm not arguing that news sites shouldn't try to find new revenue streams. I'm arguing that this new idea is terrible.

[Edited on November 24, 2009 at 10:18 AM. Reason : ]

11/24/2009 10:17:31 AM

^it's the only idea I've seen that builds an positive content quality cycle. From that perspective I think it's a GREAT idea.

The current news content models are all operating on a degenerative content slide. More topics, less depth, less accuracy, more sensationalism. There needs to be a course correction before the industry tanks completely and journalists stop practicing and move to other industries.

Your perceived inconvenience of needing to use two content portals instead of one is absolutely insignificant in comparison to a world without in depth news and investigation.

11/24/2009 6:53:09 PM

Quote :

"there's plenty of good journalism going on."

earth much?

11/24/2009 9:28:56 PM

Quote :

"it's the only idea I've seen that builds an positive content quality cycle."

Except it wouldn't.

Ultimately, the amount a search engine paid would still be dependent on traffic (which would still be dependent on sensationalism), since that is how Microsoft would make their money. Sure, MS will subsidize them for a while, but only until they come to terms with the fact that they aren't going to beat Google.

And really, when the first paycheck will apparently go out to News Corp, are you really going to argue that this deal is meant to increase journalistic integrity? The NY Post? Fox News? Beacons of integrity.

Quote :

"The current news content models are all operating on a degenerative content slide. More topics, less depth, less accuracy, more sensationalism."

Quote :

"earth much?"

Look, I'm not going to argue that I'm happy with the state of journalism, but you're going to have to provide some arguments for some assumptions you're making:

-That there really has been a significant slide in the quality of journalism. When was this supposed golden age of journalism that Google is responsible for killing? I'll accept that there's some terrible journalism going on, but it's primarily occurring on the cable news stations you just championed. The Washington Post still exists. Good newspapers still exist. Smaller newspapers are dying out, but not because they had too much journalistic integrity for the internet age. I don't recall the Des Moines Daily or what-have-you breaking Watergate or releasing the Pentagon Papers.

-That the search engine is any different that the news stand. You seem to think that this new scheme will take popularity out of the equation. 1-- It won't. 2-- popularity has always been the factor that sells newspapers. As if getting paychecks from a search engine each month will turn the NY Post into an academic journal.

I'm thinking of a time before radio, television and the internet, when the only way to get news was to pay for it. And all that pops into my head is "REMEMBER THE MAINE, TO HELL WITH SPAIN!"

If only we could travel back in time to those golden years.



[Edited on November 25, 2009 at 8:17 AM. Reason : ]

11/25/2009 8:14:35 AM

This thread is funny...

Lets see... how is this going to affect my life??

Well, if my google toolbar on top of my firefox browser doesnt take me to news corp websites, it seems that I will never go to news corp websites anymore, unless I happen to already like them and frequent them directly via a bookmark I already have.

And since bing/live/ms search account for a small percentage of searches on the net, I guess these subsidiaries of news corp are happy with no longer getting viewed by the majority of people who do searches for relevant topics...

My life without news corp sites doesnt seem to be a world lacking something important, so ... moving on ... let MS try to pay its way out of sub-par search results ... it wont affect me at all

11/25/2009 8:47:02 AM

^

thread winner.

11/25/2009 8:52:24 AM

Quote :

"-That the search engine is any different that the news stand. You seem to think that this new scheme will take popularity out of the equation. 1-- It won't. 2-- popularity has always been the factor that sells newspapers. As if getting paychecks from a search engine each month will turn the NY Post into an academic journal. "

A news stand PAYS for the newspapers up front, and then recoups it's money from selling those papers. Google doesn't pay for any news, and makes money from serving the content, none of which goes back to the content creator. So yes, it's COMPLETELY different.

Quote :

"Ultimately, the amount a search engine paid would still be dependent on traffic (which would still be dependent on sensationalism), since that is how Microsoft would make their money. Sure, MS will subsidize them for a while, but only until they come to terms with the fact that they aren't going to beat Google... -That there really has been a significant slide in the quality of journalism. When was this supposed golden age of journalism that Google is responsible for killing? ... I don't recall the Des Moines Daily or what-have-you breaking Watergate or releasing the Pentagon Papers."

You obviously don't get the concept of pooling, which is the entire point of my first post in this thread. Microsoft would be paying for a POOL of content, not the content itself. Which is a huge difference, and means that no, the payout would not be dependent on traffic. In the same way that the most successful advertising platform on the planet (Google AdWords) does not calculate it's pay based on traffic. Your idea of internet revenue is stuck in the 1998 mentality that somehow traffic=money. They are related through two steps of indirection. Like I said before, Google isn't responsible for the decline. Blogs are. Google hasn't done anything, which is the problem. You can only index content that exists... if the industry producing the news you index fades away, it doesn't leave you with much to search for.

I'm not going to debate the decline of journalism here, take that to the soapbox. There's a TON of factual evidence to show the decline in investigative journalism, a decline in the industry resources and a decline in exactly those types of articles across the industry, not from any one specific paper.

Quote :

"Lets see... how is this going to affect my life?? Well, if my google toolbar on top of my firefox browser doesnt take me to news corp websites, it seems that I will never go to news corp websites anymore, unless I happen to already like them and frequent them directly via a bookmark I already have... My life without news corp sites doesnt seem to be a world lacking something important, so ... moving on ... let MS try to pay its way out of sub-par search results ... it wont affect me at all"

You can stick your head in the sand, it doesn't mean the world doesn't exist. Most of the valuable content on the internet already doesn't pop up on your Google toolbar. Adding news to that list just makes you a less knowledgeable individual, which I would argue will affect you greatly. But then, they say ignorance is bliss

Hello straw man, nice to see you.

[Edited on November 25, 2009 at 10:58 AM. Reason : correction]

11/25/2009 10:51:44 AM

Quote :

"and makes money from serving the content"

There's a huge distinction between "linking to" and "serving."

And you missed the entire point. You seem to think that this scheme will remove newspaper popularity from the equation. That once MS starts sending checks, newspaper will be able to start publishing front page articles on the nuances of Constitutional law, or something.

Quote :

"Your idea of internet revenue is stuck in the 1998 mentality that somehow traffic=money. They are related through two steps of indirection."

I could very well be ignorant about this, but the fact that you're not bothering to explain it makes me skeptical. Does the NY Times run all those Tiffany and Apple ads just to look chic?

Quote :

"Like I said before, Google isn't responsible for the decline. Blogs are."

I'm not one for calling people "elitist," but seriously-- get off your high horse. There are tons of great blogs out there doing tons of quality investigative reporting. And they're what people want. Let's create some scheme between the record companies and iTunes/Zune Market/Napster etc... so that they can fund the one proper form of music-- classical. Same rationale. Same bad deal for the consumer.

I don't want the the internet to be "silo-ized" ( ) all for the sake of some quixotian mission to restore The Golden Age of journalism.

Quote :

"if the industry producing the news you index fades away"

Completely alarmist. The internet is here in full force, and there are still plenty of newspapers around, doing quality journalism. Lots of newspapers are going out of business, but so what? Why should redundant businesses stick around? Lots of railroad companies have gone out of business, too.

And let's just be clear that nothing about this scheme indicates altruism towards the poor, struggling newspaper industry. News Corp? Really?

Quote :

"There's a TON of factual evidence to show the decline in investigative journalism"

I spend most of my lunch breaks on TSB, and I've not yet run across this factual evidence.


[Edited on November 25, 2009 at 11:49 AM. Reason : ]

11/25/2009 11:40:17 AM

Quote :

"But then, they say ignorance is bliss "

When it comes to news corp ... this could be very true

Now, if MS took control of the wolf web, and I had to use bing to access it, as a portal ... Well, maybe I would have to change my behaviors

Fact remains, for quick searches, no one cares THAT much whether it comes from a new corp site, or one of its competitors ... most *need to know* news will be covered by multiple sources. So, if there is something that is exclusively available at one of these news corp sites, then maybe they have something to work from here ... otherwise, I think its another desperate leap at being relevant in the search conversation for MS.

11/25/2009 1:34:01 PM

we're talking ab out NEWS CORP here, guys.

This is not much worse than losing the national enquirer from google search.

WSJ is the only worthwhile rag that they have, and very little of the content is free anyway.

[Edited on November 25, 2009 at 1:48 PM. Reason : asdf]

11/25/2009 1:47:49 PM