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November 9, 2009
Murdoch to Google: Drop Dead
Okay, so News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch didn't really tell Google to drop dead. That's just an attention getting device like the classic headline in The Daily News back in the 1970s: "Ford to City: Drop Dead."
What Murdoch did say in a Sky News interview today was that his company is considering blocking Google from being able to search its Web sites.
Murdoch said, "I think we will (block Google), but that's when we start charging. We have it already with the Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it's not right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story - but if you're not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a paragraph and a subscription form."
In the past, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said, "In general these models (paid online content) have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity. So my guess is for niche and specialist markets ... it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news."
If you want to watch the interview for yourself, check it out on YouTube -- which, ironically, is an independent subsidiary of Google Inc.
Sky News - Interview with Rupert Murdoch
Now, would Google really "drop dead" if News Corp. blocked it from crawling its websites?
Bill Tancer, the General Manager, Global Research at Experian Hitwise, took a look at this question in a blog post entitled, "News Corp. Google-less?"
According to Hitwise data:
- On a weekly basis Google and Google news are the top traffic providers for WSJ.com account for over 25 percent of WSJ.com's traffic.
- Over 44 percent of WSJ.com visitors coming from Google are "new" users who haven't visited the domain in the last 30 days.
- Twitter and Facebook sent 4% of US visits to News and Media sites in October 2009. (via @Hitwise_US)
- The percentage of upstream traffic from Facebook and Twitter to News and Media sites is up 490% year-over-year.
So, maybe Murdoch should think twice before pulling the plug on 25 percent of WSJ.com's traffic. Although the amount of traffic from social media like Facebook and Twitter is growing, it won't offset the upstream traffic from Google and Google News.
Or, who knows, maybe the tables will be turned someday and we'll read a headline like: "Google to Murdoch: Go Ahead, Make My Day."
Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 9, 2009 9:07 PM
Comments
Aussiewebmaster November 9, 2009 10:23 PM
for someone who has regular traffic, spending effort on SEO is a waste of effort. I guess the 20/80 rule told him to do so. Good for him.
Ahmad Barirani November 9, 2009 11:19 PM
Good. Let him block his propaganda garbage from Google. Who cares about Murd(er)och. He's just another greedy money monster.
As the old saying goes, a fool and his money soon part.
lofa November 10, 2009 3:02 AM
I thought WSJ.com understood the power of search when I heard Gordon McLeod of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network give one of the keynote presentations at SES New York 2008. But that was then and this is now.
Greg Jarboe November 10, 2009 10:32 AM
Let them all charge for their services. CNN, Fox, all the major news outlets who are owned by a select handful of greedy multinational corporations, please start charging for your content. Because if there's one thing the uneducated masses value above anything else, it's their dollar.
The new media mammals stand poised to take over the dinosaurs of the game and run them out, and nothing would help this happen quicker than all the old fogies deciding to charge money for their services. Then, slowly but surely, we might generate a more educated populace who DOESN'T get all their "news" cherry picked and spoon fed to them by huge, corporate war profiteers and global elitist pigs like NewsCorp, GE, Time Warner and Disney.
Roe November 10, 2009 4:03 PM
Roe I couldn't say it better so I won't.
Power back to the people.
Cosmos Privateer November 11, 2009 5:30 PM
Funny how this is playing out now and the comments it is getting... I wrote a piece in August telling Rupert not to make this move.
http://searchenginewatch.com/3634657