Murdoch Draws Bead On Google

News Corp readies its lasers.

Rupert Murdoch’s war against free content continues. The yesteryear tycoon recently complained about search engines “stealing” news content from his pay-to-read sites – such as WSJ.com – and spreading it around for free. Murdoch is particularly not fond of the concept of free use, and would like to see it put to death entirely.

Murdoch’s News Corporation is planning on blocking Google’s indexing robots from its sites entirely in an effort to force people to subscribe to its paid online services. Apparently Mr. Murdoch is under the impression that excluding the biggest source of web traffic from your news site is a great idea.

The truth is, no one has come up with a way to successfully sell news content on the Internet. You can sell ad space next to your articles; you can sell products next to your articles. You can also provide other services in addition to news content, and charge for them. But you can’t effectively sell news online.

The reason is that no one has a monopoly on news. We do not have to rely on newspapers, television, or radio broadcasts to give us updates on current events. News are news, and while the spin may change from site to site, the facts themselves remain the same. There are no “regular” news and “premium” news. If you cannot gain exclusive access to the source, it is hard to provide exclusive access to the content.

According to a survey in the United Kingdom, 91% of people who read news online would never pay for them. Furthermore, 90% of them would not pay for news analysis either.

There is no doubt that gathering news is not free. Reporters, editors, designers, producers, and God knows who else have to make a living. The money has to come from somewhere. The problem is, Murdoch is unwilling to accept the fact that the iPod generation, his company’s future customer base, is not going to warm up to the newspaper subscription model anymore. The money has to come from somewhere else. By blocking Google, Murdoch is just shooting himself in the foot.

Tagged as: Culture, Google, Internet, Media, Murdoch, News, tech, Television