As News Corp sites prepare to erect paywalls around their content, the editor of the UK’s Times has finally revealed some bricks-and-mortar information about what it will be doing and when.
Online news
Why Murdoch won’t ditch Google
Rupert Murdoch’s threat to pull all News Corp sites from Google’s search index may not be as dire for the mastheads as many are predicting — but chances are he won’t follow through on it anyway: he’ll just erect even higher paywalls.
How Murdoch can really hurt Google
Rupert Murdoch’s recent rejection of Google may be less about news content and more about the search engine wars, suggests Michael Arrington: by de-indexing from Google, other search engines could pay him for the rights to index News Corp content.
Why Murdoch may be more right than wrong about Google
mUmBRELLA’s Tim Burrowes asks if Rupert Murdoch has a point in thumbing his nose at Google and locking News Ltd’s content behind a paywall — maybe Google traffic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Which News Corp sites are “stealing” content?
Rupert Murdoch has been a vociferous opponent of news aggregation sites “stealing” his News Corp content for profit — but are News websites just as guilty? Tech Dirt lists all of Murdoch’s sites currently aggregating other sites’ news and articles.
Rupert Murdoch: the internet does not exist
As of a year ago, Rupert Murdoch had never even used Google — so maybe he doesn’t realise that by cutting News Corp off from it, the organisation will cease to exist, writes Michael Wolff.
Dear Rupert, this is how the internet works. Google it.
Rupert Murdoch may be rich, clever and influential, but his plan to remove News Corp content from Google’s index is just daft. If he wants us to read his stories, let alone pay for them, we have to be able to find them first.
Fairfax to rule out locking up news websites?
Listen out for the sound of the Murdoch minions reacting to the cold water Fairfax Media CEO Brian McCarthy has just poured on the idea of paid content news websites at the Fairfax AGM this morning.
Murdoch gives Google the finger
Rupert Murdoch says he’s going to remove News Corp media sites — like The Australian and the WSJ — from Google search results once the company’s big paywall goes up. Yeah, who needs new readers anyway?
Crikey costs trimmed, but not the attitude
The contributor budget has been cut here at Crikey, leading some to fear the publication will be run with a harder commercial edge following recent changes in ownership and management.
How social media excludes people with social lives
ABC journo Lyndal Curtis would love to get into Twitter — but she’s a bit too busy actually having a real life to bang out 140 characters about it every five minutes (heresy!). Are busy people being left behind in the “social media revolution”?
iTunes for print? Selling the story instead of the magazine
Online aggregator Maggwire.com is planning “to do for magazines what iTunes did for music”, by selling “premium” magazine articles for a few bucks online. It may save the companies, but could it kill off the printed versions in the process?
Web ads: a watcher’s guide
Push-downs, troll ads, blogger endorsements and the Hulk — they’re all new and different ways advertisers and webmasters are trying to catch your eye (and clicks) online, to generate more (or any) money from the web.
Newsday columnist quits over paywall
Newsday columnist Saul Friedman has quit after the company erected a paywall on its website. In an open letter explaining the move, he says even he can’t access his own columns now.
Imagining life behind the pay-wall
The year is 2012 and the news is no longer free: Michael Wolff is in prison, Fox has renamed itself The Glenn Beck Channel, a NYT sub costs $7000-per-year, and a cultural divide has formed between the news-haves and news-have-nots…
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Politico and Wash Post to engage in DC territorial pissing
Online political news site Politico is going to launch a local Washington DC edition of the site, headed up by the former editor of WashingtonPost.com. It’s a pretty direct attack on The Washington Post’s DC supremacy, and HuffPo has its hands on an internal memo that outlines the plans.
Future of the ABC: less broadcaster, more webmaster
The shift in the ABC’s Arts programming from TV and radio to the web heralds a much larger metamorphosis for the broadcaster, in which the web is its primary form and other mediums just exist to feed it content, writes Karl Quinn.
When online journalists moonlight as copy-writers
The (Dis)Information Age: how the internet is making us stupider
Despite the rhetoric of “openness”, the internet is actually making us more narrow-minded by allowing us to filter what we read to suit our own viewpoints, says a new book by academic Cass Sunstein. How else can you explain the absurd ideas of the “birthers” gaining a foothold?
Would you pay Murdoch for articles like this…?
“Drunkest man ever tries to buy booze” is apparently what News Ltd’s Adelaide Now believes is news. Is this what Rupert Murdoch means when he talks about his engaging, original content? asks Ben Shepherd.
Mark Day: News does have content worth paying for — we just haven’t figured out what it is yet
Mark Dayleaps into the The Oz’s “Stacks-on ABC’s Mark Day” Day: Scott is wrong to dismiss paywalls on the grounds that much of News Corp’s content isn’t worth paying for: it is, and when Rupert works out what and why, he’ll let you know.
Your ABC and their News Limited: the media’s empire games
A speech last night by ABC chief Mark Scott was a pre-emptive strike in what will be the main media battle of the first quarter of this century — between paid content and public broadcasting.
Has Politico turned tabloid?
It’s generally regarded to be one of the best and most successful political news sites on the web, but lately Politico has slipped into sensationalism, says Splice Today, with headlines like “Roman Polanski backers gave $34k to Barack Obama”.
Google CEO: We have a “moral responsibility” to help newspapers
Regardless of what newspaper publishers may think, Google isn’t out to get them. In fact, it wants to to help, says the search giant’s CEO Eric Schmidt — just don’t expect any handouts.
Wolff: Murdoch declares war on the internet
Rupert Murdoch’s decision to paywall all of News Corp’s online content is a call to arms against the internet, says Michael Wolff. It’s a war he can’t win, but that doesn’t mean business blood won’t be shed.
