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Microsoft and Murdoch: Teaming up to bash Google?

Bob2002

ULTIMATE Member
There's a fascinating story in this morning's edition of the Financial Times, which could signal a big shift in the balance of power between parts of the web and other parts of the media. The piece says that Microsoft has been in talks with the media giant News Corporation over a plan which could see the firm behind papers from the Wall Street Journal to the Sun being paid to stop Google searching its news websites.

The implication is that Microsoft's search engine Bing would be the place to go for news - and that Google would have to start paying if it wanted to retain that kind of content.

The FT's story comes a week or so after the Techcrunch UK blog reported that Microsoft had held talks with European publishers about what sounds like a similar plan to get them onside as part of a battle to make Bing a more attractive and lucrative place than Google for their content.

So is there any truth in either report? Well, a couple of days after the Techcrunch post, I was due to interview a senior executive from Bing, and Microsoft called to ask whether I would be asking about that story. When I said yes I would, they said he could not talk about it - and we therefore pulled out of the interview. Make of that what you will.

Rest of blog post

Micro$oft and Murdoch, it's hard to think of a more repellent couple. :confused:
 
I read Murdoch's rant the other day, about how he would rather have "a small number of people who pay to use his news services, rather than a huge number who don't".

I agree, the less people who use his services, the more people there might be who actually get to see some proper journalism, rather than the conservative biased rubbish his companies churn out.

Has anyone ever watched Fox News? it reminds me so much of the old BBC show, "The Day Today". :laugh:
 
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Has anyone ever watched Fox News? it reminds me so much of the old BBC show, "The Day Today". :laugh:

I used to watch it quite often with TVU. Programmes like The O'Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity. O'Reilly is sort of like an angry version of the Daily Mail and Hannity spews non-stop, right-wing, b*ll*hit (he's truly dreadfull and I'm centre right myself). I hope I never, ever, see the day this type of TV channel appears in the UK. :shrug:
 
I can understand Microsoft wanting to erode Google's dominance but Murdoch's newspaper position appears to totally misunderstand how people find and access content on the Internet. Search engines are the corner stone and if he blocks Google, which is actually very easy to do, then all that will happen is fewer visitors will arrive at the Times’ website and risk making it pointless. Now Murdoch might gamble that this will improve newspaper sales but I suspect the loss vs gain ratio will favour loss.
 
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