Clash of the Titans

Will Murdoch really block all Newscorp content from Google searches? The debate is certainly heating up. Google claims that Newscorp publications will lose a vital number of referrals through its search engine. Newscorp claims it can do without this traffic, especially as it claims Google is stealing their content and monetizing it by selling advertising on the search engine.

At the same time Microsoft may be using this opportunity to reach out to publishers and create partnerships to publish their content in a ‘premium’ way.

Quote: “There is real tension surrounding the free versus pay debate,” Mr Miller told the Monaco Media Forum on Friday. “It will play out in the next two years. We believe that the value of high quality content is not recognised online [by giving its away for free) so something needs to happen. Rupert Murdoch to remove News Corp’s content from Google ‘in months’ – Telegraph The Daily Telegraph (UK) | November 15, 2009

Quote: It’s easy (and fun) to paint Murdoch as an antipodean Charles Kane, but Doctorow’s caricature doesn’t engage with what Murdoch is proposing (it also seems to be a caricature that Murdoch himself recognises. Witness his self-penned introduction on The Simpsons: “Hello, I’m Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire tyrant”). Murdoch is quite obviously not mad; he is quite obviously rich, from successfully reading the state of the media industry over the last 30 years. So if he’s not a madman talking nonsense, why is he doing it? Is Murdoch mad to go after Google?  wired.co.uk | November 12, 2009