TECHNOLOGY TIPS - GOOGLE AND WALL STREET JOURNAL/NEWS CORP. FIGHTING?
The question: Is Robert Murdoch bluffing?
The short answer: We're not sure, yet.
In an interview with Sky News Australia last week, Murdoch accused Google, Microsoft and other search engines of "stealing" his company's content. In the same interview Murdoch was questioned why he didn't just pull all News Corp. holdings from the engines out there. According to Murdoch, "I think we will. But that's when we start charging."
One of the main challenges is that when you go to a search engine like Google, your search results could provide a link to one of News Corp.'s articles from The Wall Street Journal for instance. Right now, you have access to all the media without making payment. If Murdoch gets his way, then you must have an online subscription to the media outlets owned by News Corp. These outlets would include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, 20th Century Fox, Fox News, MySpace and Hulu, to name a few.
Two quick notes of interest. Murdoch is not a fan of the ad-supported model. "What's the point of having someone come occasionally who likes a headline they see in Google. The fact is there isn't enough advertising in the world to go around to make all the Web sites profitable. We'd rather have fewer people coming to our Web sites but paying."
The second more interesting fact is that this is not the first time the media industry has made these types of threats with the search engines.
The fact remains that only time will tell, but be prepared to start paying for your news again if this in fact does go through.
