Rupert Murdoch, the legendary founder of News Corp., has always had a love-hate relationship with the digital world. Sometimes (read: during the bubbles) he loves it. Sometimes (read: during advertising recessions) he hates it. His recent moves – whether it be getting rid of some of News Corp’s digital holdings or shuffling the chairs at MySpace — are a continuation of that love-hate relationship. (Watch the video below the fold.)
And as we all know (and have read), he is not so enamored with Google, the so-called content stealer. (Never mind that he was OK taking Google’s $900 million when the search giant wanted to run ads on MySpace.) In an interview with Fox Business Network in Abu Dhabi, Murdoch said:
“Well Fox is now paid for. People when they pay their cable bills some of it comes to Fox. Cable television is paid television. But search on the Internet whether it be Bing or Google, whatever, it’s free and they simply take all our expensive and we think very good content such as Wall Street Journal or whatever and what they call they scrape it and they use it for search, it gives them their raw material for nothing and then they have this very clever business model of charging for searching it, we don’t get any of that. And they are technologically brilliant, they are a long way ahead but they do not have the right to do it if we want to stop them.”
In contrast to Google, it seems he loves Apple’s iPad and what it can do for the publisher.
Now that Apple is coming out with the Ipad that will be a very interesting way, more media is going to go into the Ipad…And they’ll get better and better and you’ll be able to do more tricks with it…And particularly with advertising and you see an advisement and you touch it and it becomes a 30 second commercial it’ll be these sort of things will happen not this year perhaps.”
I think it’s called “iPad”, not “Ipad”.
I don’t like this sorta thing… the more it goes in this direction the less diverse content on the Internet will become. The Internet just isn’t the same without all of the weird sites like Dancing Hamster, Instant Rimshot, Goatse, etc. No matter how much things improve, I still miss the glory days of the web. 🙂
ipad is yet another nail in the coffin of traditional media. I feel so sorry about your under-estimation about things.
regards,
arvind
lol. you’ll see a commercial and you’ll touch it and it will become a LONG commercial. WHAT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO!!
Does Murdoch promise to keep this brilliant idea confined to Apple gadgets? please?
Just because google doesnt have a ipad or a iphone or a dell laptop full with windows junk to give to you to play around with – shouldn’t mean that your site should undermine google all the time and bring up microsoft and apple.
The real battle in the tech is in full swing and it is between Apple (Mr. Cool) and Google (Do no Evil). I don’t think Apple will offer search anytime soon, but they will try to kick Google in the smart phone market. Apple tends to stay focus, but Google is all over and eventually they will take they eye from the ball and will pay.
Murdoch has a point. I mean this all notion of free Internet, free this, free that has a big hole in it. I mean, somebody has to pay the bill! And why would it be the content provider? Problem: The consumer don’t want to pay for content Murdoch pays to develop. Then Google/Bing provide that same content to that same consumer through the search results. Finally Google/Bing share the proceeds of online AdWords type of advertising. You can always say that Murdoch also can earn money from ads on his sites. But Murdoch never signed any deal with Google/Bing for them to cash in on his online presence! There’s a big flaw in the Internet concept guys, it’s unbalanced and as a consequence, we have lost quality. Admit it. And we will keep losing it until all the numbers balance. Now the iPad has the merit to do it right because in Steve Jobs’ view, consumers have to pay for what you provide them with. Yes, it balances: No money? No candy! Same old business formula.
Although it doesn’t come through very coherently in this article, Mr Murdoch has a point overall. Content produced by amateurs has a certain immediacy and charm, but it does not replace the work of professional journalists, either in the quality of the writing or that of the investigation and analysis. Professionals need to be paid, and it is in the interests of our society at large that they continue to be paid. If that means putting all the quality content behind paywalls, well that’s quite reasonable, and if that’s what it takes to put journalism back on a sound footing I think it’s a price well worth paying. I think Mr Murdoch’s pronouncements are mainly for the benefit of his fellow print media heavyweights, and that he’s hoping to raise a standard for them to follow. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s succeeded in moving the norms of his entire industry after all. Here’s hoping that a renewed appreciation of the virtues of truly professional journalism will be his (somewhat ironic) legacy.
Agreed. And to add to your comment, I’d say that there is a future to paid content (music, video, press, ebooks, apps) online. This situation will lead to 2 categories in the Web (2 legs). Just like in politics, a left and right one: 1) the “left” web, free, messy, disorganized, huge but somewhat diverse and very entertaining, and 2) the “right” web, paid, standardized, organized, smaller, less diverse but as entertaining… Both will be useful, one nurturing the other constantly as one person needs 2 legs to walk properly, so will the Web!!!
Traditional media “anticipates” the needs of the audience, while most of today’s online media (and search-driven aggregators) merely “capture” existing interest. But what worked for traditional print businesses hasn’t worked as well in the Web. What’s been needed is a new device type (Tablet like the iPad), an easy to use marketplace (like iTunes) and the application of proven business models (like magazine subscriptions). About Me – http://bit.ly/amSW5Y
the first in a long line of old people who’ll like the iPad.
Surely at some point the consumer is going to wake up to the fact that the more apple duplicates expensive, resource intensive hardware in its various Ithings, the more it restricts the utility the software is allowed to provide. Howm many Igadgets does apple want to sell us?
This guy puts it real well, funny to ‘THE ICaR’
http://secretlovechild.com/science-a-technology/53-analysis/50-the-icar