The idea on the table is basically an exclusive distribution deal. These deals have a long and profitable history. Points of access will often make a sweetheart deal to have something special to differentiate themselves from otherwise interchangeable providers. It's why Howard Stern gets paid a premium to be exclusively on Sirius, and why certain smartphones are only on certain networks.
That's not to say this is a good idea for News Corp, but it's not a nonsensical idea.
These deals tend to fall apart over time though, as the content quality differential fades. If you are the only channel (or network) offering a certain content (or device) then you win by keeping it as a bundle. But both content and mobile client devices change fairly rapidly. If others start producing content that is equally good or even slightly worse, but much easier to access (due to indexing, being free, being linked to), you lose from your bundling, and you start losing content as well. If other devices are equally good or better, you want to break bundling as much as possible so that your competitors get a smaller share of bundle revenues.
So the question becomes: How can News Corp. best convert attention into money?
It's too easy to say "If you can't make money from attention, you should do something else for a living." That's exactly the problem. They make piles of money out of attention, just not at the margins they have historically.
It is an intractable position, perhaps impossible. However, history has not looked favorably upon leaders who do nothing and watch their empire and margins shrink even if it is the only option. These times demand bold blunders.
These times also demand picking yourself up, brushing yourself off, saying you'll get it right next time, and trying again. Too many of these old guard Big Media would rather just sit at the side lines rather than take a lead and show us where we should be going.
There is no "we" here. These leaders work for their companies and are sitting precisely at local maximums. It makes sense to sit there for a while, wait for someone else to discover the new new maximum, and then move toward it and try to take it over.
You don't get bold blunders by sitting on the side lines. And that "we" could be just as well be the company's share holders. Being the captain sitting at the local maximums as the ship is sinking only gets you in the history books as being the guy who went down with the ship.
Eee...
You can not do too much to boost Fox news today.
No matter if you like (I do) or do not, the consumer want
less of right-wing stuff. He'll probably invent something
out of this scandal, but won't return "old good times".
There doesn't seem to be anything particularly new or interesting to what's being said here. In particular, there have been many articles on this issue submitted already. Is this worthy of being posted on Hacker News simply because Seth Godin said it?
There's been multiple articles of his submitted that didn't say anything particularly non-obvious (or so it seemed to me), but this one is particularly egregious, being short enough to fit into about 2 twitter posts and bringing nothing new to a conversation that already been progressing here for weeks.
If Google visitors weren't worth the trouble News would have deployed robots.txt long ago.
I think Damien Ivereigh said it best:
Murdoch wants to be indexed by Google (if he didn't he could just use a robots.txt file). He just wants Google to pay for it – which it won't. This is a classic game of 'chicken'.
Murdoch has started publically complaining about Google in the hope of finding a government that would change the rules so that Google will be forced to pay, or at least give publishers some other way to make money out of the uncontrolled free-for-all that is the internet.
Trouble is, now Microsoft has called his bluff by saying it will give Murdoch money if it de-indexes from Google and migrates over to Bing.
At best (for Murdoch), this is just an escalation in the game of chicken with Google. At worst, people will turn around to Murdoch and ask: "Well you say you need search engines to pay, but you had the offer from Microsoft, why didn't you take it?"
Murdoch is no dinosaur struggling to figure out how to sit in the new internet age. He is a very cunning businessman who has figured out that he can't win this battle using capitalism and the markets alone.
Yes, News needs Google, they just hate to admit it. Knowing that's true, Murdoch is trying to maneuver News into a better bargaining position with Google.
There can be no better sign of who is most powerful in this struggle than the fact that all the threats and overtures are coming from News and Microsoft. Google is the Gorilla, Microsoft is the Chimp, and News is the customer who wants the vendor to pay to provide their service.
I honestly think it's foolish to think that news, or News Corp, needs Google search. Just in my personal experience I've never gotten news from searching on Google, and I'm sure many others can say the same. I use google to find something I already know of, not to find stuff I don't know about.
I think social networks have more power in spreading news. Obviously news and magazines thrived before Google, and even the internet. They're still large and powerful, even if they are starting to wane.
If you are implying that Wall Street Journal readers would not subscribe and read Wall Street Journal without Google, then I disagree. I think the comment by @mynameishere is correct, for the Wall Street Journal, Google is probably sending a lot of riff-raff over. You don't want those users. Even if they click on the NetJet or Jaguar ad, I doubt they could afford it. And most of them probably do not know what American Express Black is.
If, however, you are saying that Murdoch and Google are playing a giant game of chicken, then I would agree.
Yes, giant gsme of chicken. I don't think Murdoch has any intention of blocking Google, he's trying a North Korean-style gambit - "I am renowned for being difficult and dangerous, give me what I want or I'll do something nasty."
Murdoch threatening to block Google is like Kim Jong Il proposing to bomb South Korea - absolutely suicidal, but given how "crazy" he is no one can count against him doing it.
Like most North Korean gambits, it's mostly posturing but the fact that it comes from a potentially threatening source means it has to be carefully considered.
The Wall Street Journal is a prestige masthead, but comprises only a minor part of News Corp's print media holdings - so no, I don't even consider it significant in relation to the current Google play: Murdoch has bigger fish to fry.
That's not to say this is a good idea for News Corp, but it's not a nonsensical idea.