I reckon Rupert Murdoch’s plan to block Google from indexing News Corporation stories is daft, and I said so in Crikey yesterday with a piece they headlined Dear Rupert, this is how the internet works. Google it.
In brief, my commentary is that people don’t really get their news in a monolith any more, neither the daily newspaper or the nightly TV bulletin. Instead, they gather it from all over in little pieces. If you want people to find your stories, those stories need to be in the indexes.
Crikey editor Jonathan Green has also pointed out the stark difference between News Corporation and Google. I reckon News needs Google more than Google needs News.
Jason Calacanis has a different theory, that News will do an exclusive deal with Microsoft’s Bing.
“Want to search the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and 3,894 other newspapers and magazines?
“Well, then don’t go to Google because they don’t have them!
“Go to Bing, home of quality content you can trust!”
Which might work if News Corporation were the only supplier of general news. Which it isn’t. And which point I make in my Crikey piece.