On the Internet, my crazy uncle asked me "how come his videos ain't working." and sent me a link to the exact video he was trying to watch. Needless to say, things were hairy. Really fucking hairy. It's the future people, shave your bush.
"The meta-philosophy of free — we should get rid of this philosophy," said Christoph Keese, Springer’s head of public affairs and an architect of its online strategy. "A highly industrialized world cannot survive on rumors. It needs quality journalism, and that costs money."
This is a quote from a Bild spokesman, a newspaper that has famously low editorial standards. I don't get his appeal to the public interest here. These people have made a business of publishing irresponsible rumors that appeal to populist sentiment.
There are German newspapers that are actually doing poorly. These are mainly the broadsheets with high standards. Bild is not having any major financial issues like the broadsheets are having. It's true that its circulation is decreasing, sure, but for a newspaper that has consistently chosen the profit motive as a guiding principle over quality journalism in the public's interest, it's obviously disingenuous of them to justify their price increase as a way to provide better journalism.
The motivation is so clear here: squeeze as much money out of their readers before the great unwashed migrate away from Bild to equally poor-quality blogs.
@i'm a bottle: I worked for a short period at Axel Springer. From what I saw, that company has a way of putting douchebags in charge and repressing people who actually have good ideas — even at the online division! But isn't this what the print media business does nowadays, anyway?
@freakshowtime: The douchebaggery doesn't surprise me at all.
Also, those douches aren't doing their job. Most of the Bild properties haven't changed their format in years and their online presence is especially a mess.
They can't expect to just keep doing what they've been doing since the eighties yet hope to preserve or increase their circulation numbers. The major problem I see is that the Bild concept is graphics heavy but commentary light -- a format that's easily supplanted by anybody with an Internet connection and a Wordpress account.
@If_I_Had_a_Poodle: No kidding. I already have similar problems with about.com and experts-exchange.com. For anyone who is curious how to exclude specific sites from their Google searches, there are a number of blogs that discuss it. I won't endorse one more than any other, so try [www.google.com] to start with.
Or, as iplaudius points out below, your favorite browser (Firefox) likely offers a host of 3rd-party extensions to exclude unwanted search results.
Stupid question: Murdoch is railing against the search engines because he thinks they're stealing from him. Ok, so, that explains why he'd delist from Google- but not why he'd list on Bing. What gives?
@debatem1: Murdoch still wants buzz & word of mouth -- and other media brands reporting on WSJ's scoops -- but wants to keep Google in its place. Bing gives him leverage to wrest a better Google deal...
'Wait a minute, the sites aren't making enough money off of online ads, but google is getting rich off of... online ads?'
This is a good point. I've wondered about this myself. CPMs are generally too low online, unless you are as good as Gawker Media and a few others or you are as big as Google, to support paid content creation. But it also ties in with this:
'You still have to figure out some sort of successful advertising model to complete the picture.'
Which will be higher CPMs for ads behind paywalls because someone has paid to see them (and the content). Which means a successful advertising model. I think it will work. I think people like ads, good ones at least, and no matter how results driven Google's adword system is, the response rate is almost as if people click on them by accident. Doesn't that make them bad ads not good ads? I liked this point:
'IOW: If you punch "Coldwell Banker" into Google, the first thing on the screen is a paid ad and some people will click on it, rather than the first legitimate result that would take you to the same place.'
And because lots of people will still quote and link to a story in the WSJ, it doesn't need Google.
04:12 AM
12/08/09
12/08/09
12/08/09
I gave them a nod.
12/08/09
12/08/09
12/07/09
This is a quote from a Bild spokesman, a newspaper that has famously low editorial standards. I don't get his appeal to the public interest here. These people have made a business of publishing irresponsible rumors that appeal to populist sentiment.
There are German newspapers that are actually doing poorly. These are mainly the broadsheets with high standards. Bild is not having any major financial issues like the broadsheets are having. It's true that its circulation is decreasing, sure, but for a newspaper that has consistently chosen the profit motive as a guiding principle over quality journalism in the public's interest, it's obviously disingenuous of them to justify their price increase as a way to provide better journalism.
The motivation is so clear here: squeeze as much money out of their readers before the great unwashed migrate away from Bild to equally poor-quality blogs.
12/07/09
12/07/09
Also, those douches aren't doing their job. Most of the Bild properties haven't changed their format in years and their online presence is especially a mess.
They can't expect to just keep doing what they've been doing since the eighties yet hope to preserve or increase their circulation numbers. The major problem I see is that the Bild concept is graphics heavy but commentary light -- a format that's easily supplanted by anybody with an Internet connection and a Wordpress account.
11/30/09
11/30/09
NOT AOL will be the default google search
11/30/09
Or, as iplaudius points out below, your favorite browser (Firefox) likely offers a host of 3rd-party extensions to exclude unwanted search results.
11/30/09
Like that? I could do that.
11/30/09
11/30/09
11/30/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
This is a good point. I've wondered about this myself. CPMs are generally too low online, unless you are as good as Gawker Media and a few others or you are as big as Google, to support paid content creation. But it also ties in with this:
'You still have to figure out some sort of successful advertising model to complete the picture.'
Which will be higher CPMs for ads behind paywalls because someone has paid to see them (and the content). Which means a successful advertising model. I think it will work. I think people like ads, good ones at least, and no matter how results driven Google's adword system is, the response rate is almost as if people click on them by accident. Doesn't that make them bad ads not good ads? I liked this point:
'IOW: If you punch "Coldwell Banker" into Google, the first thing on the screen is a paid ad and some people will click on it, rather than the first legitimate result that would take you to the same place.'
And because lots of people will still quote and link to a story in the WSJ, it doesn't need Google.