Why would you stop Google indexing your news website?
Rupert Murdoch is quoted on the BBC News site today stating that search engines that index “news” are essentially stealing the right to reproduce that content within their own search results.
“There’s a doctrine called ‘fair use’, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether,”
Is this someone who has fundamentally lost all grasp on reality? Has he, or none of his senior executives ever used the Internet? I ask these flippant questions on the basis that the majority of Internet users use a search engine when looking for something, may that be clothes, electronics or news! If News Corp go down the route of blocking search engines from accessing their site, that will mean less people read stories published on News Corp sites. Less page views means less revenue, but Murdoch has a plan for that.
Murdoch’s News Corp are already working on a model that will charge their users to access content within their websites by June 2010. In fact, News Corp are working very hard:
“No. We are working very, very hard at this but I wouldn’t promise that we’re going to meet that date.
I understand that a business needs to generate revenue to survive, I really do, but I don’t think News Corp (or Murdoch for that matter) understand that very few people will pay to access this type of content online. The exact business model is unknown, but it has been suggested that there could be a tiered approach with premium content made available to those paying a higher monthly fee, while micro-payments could be applied to those looking to read a single story.
In the UK we have the BBC paid for by the licence fee i.e. it is essentially free to use. The BBC News website already competes head to head with every news / media organisation out there, therefore if you introduce a subscription model who are your competitors and what will they charge? As a user I already spend more time on the BBC News site than any other, introducing a pay wall only restricts my access to your site and it certainly does not encourage me to pay to read content that I can get elsewhere for free.
Quoted on Fox News, Murdoch goes on to say:
“There’s not enough advertising in the world to make all the Websites profitable. We’d rather have fewer people coming to our Websites but paying.
This is fair enough, but if you compare it to other content industries like music and film how successful are they at this? In the UK I am not aware of any subscription model for watching films online, perhaps Love Film and iTunes can offer a similar service. In the music business Spotify offers unlimited listening both at your desk and on your mobile for £9.99 per month with no contract. This seems pretty good value as there are no adverts with this deal, but I wouldn’t pay £9.99 per month to read news.
For News Corp to win over customers they will have to charge less than £1 a week and offer some really exclusive content and HD quality video streaming otherwise I fear their plan could backfire on them
Will you pay for content?