
GOOG Founders Could Buy All US Newspapers and Still Have $12bn - ajbatac
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2008/09/goog_founders_c.php
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netcan
_Yet the technology for aggregation and distribution is a commodity -- content
is not a commodity._

That is a ridiculous statement. A commodity (in this context) is something
that can be purchased from any vendor with very little preference from buyers.
Price becomes the only differentiators.

The core has always been printing, not content creation. Actually, what is
killing newspapers is that most of what they do/did was either a monopolised
commodity tied up with printing or simply no longer necessary. What previously
made a newspaper a newspaper?

 _Classifieds/Notifications_ They were the only ones that had the ability to
make new information available. They competed with each other locally for a
piece of this goldmine. Monopoly gone _and_ now unnecessary.

 _News Aggregation_ \- Come on. How much of what papers print is printing &
delivering what other papers/wires/independent journalists wrote. Well, we
don't need them for that anymore.

 _"Analysis"_ \- As far as commenting & analysing all that aggregated info,
well they can still do that. But you need to compete with professors,
grandmas, retired politicians & anyone else with access to Wordpress, an
endless sea of them. You need to be very good & papers certainly don't have a
monopoly on quality.

 _distribution & printing_ \- No longer necessary.

What do they do that isn't like that (no longer necessary part of a monopoly)?
Their representatives like to point to investigative journalism (first hand
research & fact finding) & community binding (everyone reads the same paper).
The latter we can do without, the former is a commodity, of sorts. Actually,
not always, but doesn't justify the whole shebang - sorry.

Bottom line is that 1. online ads aren't worth as much, 2. classifieds no
longer belong to them, 3. we don't need them to print paper & deliver it to us
& 4\. they have competition for content creation. Tough bananas.

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jonmc12
Google's brand is not a commodity. Google's technology for "technology for
aggregation and distribution" is not a commodity.

"Once the content creators and owners realize that simple fact, then we might
have a turnaround in the media sector." - yea, Google is empowering more
content creators to realize revenue, through adsense, than any newspaper ever
did or could.

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ojbyrne
One thing that's pretty clear at this point in time is that "net worth" is a
pretty elastic value. Google stock is under the same pressure (as a "media
property") that newspaper stocks are under. Ok, maybe not the same, but as
they look more like a media company, they increasingly face the same
pressures.

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alaskamiller
In a time like this, what newspaper are doing is basically nothing. The World
Association of Newspapers -- trade org of more than 18,000 newspapers
worldwide -- recently talked about their dismay with Google and Yahoo
controlling 90% of the online ad market. That's not even the problem.

The problem has been Google's ability to scan and index newspaper
archive/content and making money by running ads against that. Eventually
they'll wake up and realize what's going on and sue the bajeezus out of
Google.

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brandnewlow
Do you think a lawsuit will be the endgame? How will they explain away 10
years of willing participation?

I completely agree with this article. Newspapers just got outsmarted. They
thought their readers cared about the stories when most of them just wanted
the headlines. Google serves up headlines that it steals from people who make
them at great cost.

~~~
netcan
If users only want headlines & don't care where they are, _Newspapers_ are the
commodity.

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sown
We are truly living in the future now.

