

Might Google Buy the New York Times? - Alex3917
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2008/01/might_google_buy_the_new_york.html

======
jey
I hope not. I agree that this would be a good exit for the NYT, and I love the
NYT, but I don't get the feeling this is a good idea for either party. Google
and the NYT are in pretty separate businesses, and I think it could be bad for
Google's individual businesses if Google turned into a GM-style conglomerate.

On the other hand, if Google has some clever ideas to make the #1 American
news source of the 20th century into a pioneer of news in the 21st century
then I'll support it 100%. But this article is just some random guy
speculating that it'd be a good fit.

------
jkkramer
Google's mission statement is "to organize the world's information and make it
universally accessible and useful."

The New York Times, on the other hand, is about _creating_ information. They
also maintain a big archive, but that's not their first priority. Doesn't
sound like a good fit to me.

------
bfioca
I can tell you for sure that the big publishing companies are scrambling to
find other ways to build up their online presence. I recently left a company
that was catering to those publishers by building vertical social network
communities for them. I feel like we may end up seeing an RIAA-type scramble
of the big publishers (news corp, dow jones, reed reed elsevier) to stay
relevant. Perhaps we already are, actually...

------
patrickg-zill
I can't see that it would work. Too different a culture, and really what would
Google get out of it?

