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A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
The Coming Search Engine Media Wars
Surf The Internet the Mostly Lower Case Way
Wikipedia Gridlocked by Wikipedia Nerds
New Yorker Cartoons Now on XBox, For Some Reason
Magazine of the Future Ruined by Magazine Delivery System of the Past
Esquire Betting it All on Flashing Electronic Doo-Dads
Computer Beats Humans at Formulaic Crap
Facebook's Unspoken, Intrademographic Culture War
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Alaska Miller
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
It's like telling a city bus to stop only at Burger King instead of McDonald's and expecting everyone to pay extra for free ice cream.
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Monty
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
What is more interesting than search engines paying for content is that this could ultimately save the news media business. Ignoring the concern to Joe Searchy and having to pick a search engine based on the results being listed for their favorite news, this could potentially allow newspapers to gain income and pay their journalists again. Certainly, there is a potential dark cloud with this concept, but there is a bright and shiny one as well The news media could survive based on search engines having to pay for access to content solving their diminishing revenue stream. Hard to say whether this is a short term or long term solution to that issue, but it certainly has potential and I look forward to seeing how this turns out.
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Gabriel Snyder
11/24/09

@Monty: Paying journalists is a good thing and new revenue streams are vital for news organizations to pay for their current overhead. But the problem with the rosy scenario of search engines funding journalism is that the people who go to search engines looking for news are the ones who care the least about news brands. They're more likely to click on rocketnews.com or whatever it is as they are the WSJ.com. Which is exactly what infuriates newspaper owners like Murdoch. The folks who have favorite news sources are the ones who will go straight to those favorite news sources in the first place.
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Magister
11/24/09

@Monty: In this video of Calacanis' original suggestion (or at least the first place, I heard it), he spends a lot of the time proposing sort of a bidding war to get content from the largest media companies, but its success would hinge a great deal on Microsoft's willingness to use exclusivity as a selling point.

IOW: The content companies would get a revenue stream, but as I hear him, Bing would be the primary beneficiary in the short run.
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Edited by Magister at 11/24/09 6:15 PM Magister was starred Magister was unstarred

Gabriel Snyder
11/24/09

@Magister: Agreed. "Bing: The Only Place to Find the Wall Street Journal" would make a catchy tag line. And Microsoft probably like to lure in some other big-name brands. But I can't see them extending the same offer to smaller, lesser-known news orgs. McClatchy anyone?
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Monty
11/24/09

@Gabriel Snyder: I think we are all in agreement. It is hard to know whether this agreement will ultimately be a winner for the news media or not. Will it even work for News Corp, let alone for small newspapers around the country? Why would Bing pay for content from the Eugene, Oregon Register Guard? Hard to imagine. That said, it is interesting to see this unfold - and I admit that I doubt either the rosy outlook nor the doom and gloom one will come to be. Usually truth falls somewhere in the middle, which in this case means it will not matter much.
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Magister
11/24/09

@Gabriel Snyder: I don't know how far down Microsoft would like to go, but McClatchy owns a lot of big local papers. For instance in North Carolina, they own the two largest in the state, so maybe they could do some print trading and a couple of television ads saying something like "Bing: The exclusive index for the Charlotte Observer".

Murdoch might be the one to pioneer this and he might get some quick income, but if Microsoft is willing to pay and if they're willing to negotiate something with the other players, Google could easily lose market share over the long run.
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Magister
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
What happens when you look for a foreign or local story? I assume the Fox O&Os will be part of the equation, as will their Australian and UK papers.

Though the biggest difference for the average American Google user will probably be the inability to read WSJ stories without paying a subscription.
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Edited by Magister at 11/24/09 5:45 PM Magister was starred Magister was unstarred

sweetpickles
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
Yes. You'll find the same news at other sites by searching through Google. This isn't only about Murdoch walling off his sites, though. This is about Microsoft and News Corp. making a move to bring the internet closer to the cable television model. Search is going to become less about algorhythms and more about marketing dollars. Bing could become a curated search destination, built on the brands of established media companies. You might one day pay for a Bing app. to bring you its content resources. I don't think it's far fetched. The phone company and cable have been doing the same thing for decades: Providing a premium utility. You remember the White Pages, right?
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Hello Mister Walrus
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
I think this is really audience-specific. I work for a bank, so if I had to choose between Google + no WSJ and some other search engine that is 97% as good as Google + WSJ, I would have to choose the latter. I imagine that old people, conservatives, and many other smaller groups of people might feel the same way. Add all these pieces up, and it could sum to a non-negligible percentage of market share.
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NorwoodIsMyHero
11/24/09

@Hello Mister Walrus: I work at a private bank and I completely agree. The problem is you and I and the old fogeys don't really represent a vast majority of Google's search audience.
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OCEntertainment
11/24/09

@Hello Mister Walrus: I would be very interested in having a conversation with the (according to the stereotypes) conservative fans of Fox News who are ok with one company strong-arming them into using their product through backroom deals, rather than by improving the quality of their products. Free market!

Wait, scratch that. What am I talking about? I do not want to have to wade through that conversation.
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Nick
11/24/09

@OCEntertainment: i also work at a bank. i use Google Finance for a lot and hate the Fox Business site. if i need something Fox News related (which i do like) i go straight to them. i also use Bloomberg. i am just typing my opinion because i like the sight of my own words.
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OCEntertainment
11/24/09

@Nick: I'm pretty sure you could include that last sentence with any comment posted in any comment thread on the internet and still be properly poking fun at the commenter/article you're responding to (as well as yourself).

Thanks for the perspective. I'm logging off early tonight.
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Hello Mister Walrus
11/24/09

@NorwoodIsMyHero: But what % are these people (bankers, business people and old fogeys)? 10%? More? To a casual Google user, that's not much. To Google, that's 10% of their business.
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Hello Mister Walrus
11/24/09

@Nick: I don't care about Fox News, and I suspect that many people don't really, other than for the entertainment value. I care about the WSJ only, out of News Corp's publications. Unfortunately, the WSJ is a very important publication in finance. Since not missing finance news is part of my livelihood, I might be forced to use Bing if News Corp drops Google.

I disapprove of these business practices that artificially entice people to use specific search engines. However, this does not make me immune to the effects.
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Edited by Hello Mister Walrus at 11/24/09 5:55 PM

NorwoodIsMyHero
11/25/09

@Hello Mister Walrus: I don't think we'd completely stop using Google though. At work and in news searches, I certainly would be using Bing, but at home I'd probably still use Google by default, and only if I specifically was looking for news would I switch, which when I'm home is basically never as I get plenty of it throughout the workday.
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Gabriel Snyder
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
And notice in that first search that while News Corp. is saying it can live without Google, it's also buying up ad keywords like "lieberman public option" to send people to WSJ.com.
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Magister
11/24/09

@Gabriel Snyder: I haven't read the WSJ's affiliate agreement and am too lazy to look for it now, but does it preclude people from buying keywords and coding them with their number?
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Edited by Magister at 11/24/09 5:54 PM Magister was starred Magister was unstarred

Gabriel Snyder
11/24/09

@Magister: Good point. The ad isn't being served to me any more, so I can't see what the affiliate code was.
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Magister
11/24/09

@Gabriel Snyder: The same, here. I went to look before making the suggestion, but the ads were gone (maybe they're on restricted hours) and Hamilton's post had made it onto the front page.
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manchops
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
but have you tried googling:
"Andrea Peyser + sex goddess?"

I mean, hello?
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
Perfect.

And if they take even one step in the direction of "You can't quote our stories" they will drive themselves so far into irrelevancy ...
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Helio
11/24/09

@If_I_Had_a_Poodle: Let's hope they take that bait.
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Heneage
11/24/09

In reply to A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss
Servicy.
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Aatom
11/24/09

In reply to The Coming Search Engine Media Wars
"if people want to enjoy a fundamental baseline of serious news media in this country, they will have to pay for it, somehow."

I agree with this, but feel like it misses a larger point. This isn't exactly the full picture of how it worked during the heyday of print journalism, is it? Subscriptions made up a small percentage of revenue, but the rest was comprised mainly of advertising and classifieds. There really is no successful subscription-only media model that has ever worked, as far as I know.

You still have to figure out some sort of successful advertising model to complete the picture.
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drunkexpatwriter
11/24/09

In reply to The Coming Search Engine Media Wars
But.... unless I'm missing something, while the original links won't turn up on Google, any story of any real interest will be linked to by a host of of blogs and other sites and the stories will therefore end up on google anyway.

It just means that if I'm searching for a Wall Street Journal story I'll just have to first click on some business blog that's linked to it.
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britneyspearstears
11/24/09

@drunkexpatwriter: Of course, Google could always choose to ignore this: [online.wsj.com]
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marcsiry
11/24/09

In reply to Surf The Internet the Mostly Lower Case Way
This marks the day that "branding" was officially rebranded as "wanking."
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badasscat
11/23/09

In reply to Wikipedia Gridlocked by Wikipedia Nerds
And yet still, up until last week Wikipedia listed the wrong actor as Captain Steubing on The Love Boat!

(Seriously!)
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raincoaster
11/23/09

In reply to Surf The Internet the Mostly Lower Case Way
Sucker. Bullshit. Down the toilet.
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MincnglyWhrdL'mer
11/23/09

In reply to Surf The Internet the Mostly Lower Case Way
lol.
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