Murdoch and Google redux

I wouldn’t blame you for being bored of my views on the Google versus Murdoch debate by now.  

But if you’re not, last week’s opinion piece on why Murdoch may have a point, which was triggered by his threat not to index on Google, led to an invitation to write a piece on the issue for The Australian.

You can read it here.

Tim Burrowes

November 16th, 2009 at 10:57 am

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Comments


  1. Rog
    16 Nov 09
    11:49 am

    2. Nice piece! Still no link love for you though :-)

  2. Matt
    16 Nov 09
    11:51 am

    3. Funny how a change of heart suggesting Rupert might be on to something leads to an invitation to write about the issue in the Murdoch press, huh?!?

    Nothing against your piece, Tim. I think you make a good point and it’s an interesting addition to the debate.

    I just very much doubt that someone who added to the debate, but didn’t come around to Rupert’s way of thinking would ever have received a similar invitation.

  3. Larry
    16 Nov 09
    11:56 am

    4. i’m curious whether they paid for the piece … seeing how they want to be paid by the search engines for indexing their content.

    mumbrella?

  4. mumbrella
    16 Nov 09
    12:18 pm

    5. Hi Larry,

    I was delighted to be asked to write the piece, and didn’t ask for payment, as the potential exposure made writing the piece worthwhile on its own. The same has previously applied when writing for the likes of the Walkley magazine, Crikey, ABC online and others.

    Cheers,

    Tim – Mumbrella

  5. Gavin
    16 Nov 09
    1:54 pm

    6. Tim
    Think Matt’s point is worth revisiting. i read your Crikey piece, which was rivetting. I haven’t gone to da Oz as yet. However, if the outcome of the Crikey piece was that Rupert was up himself (as everyone else thinks), do you think da Oz would’ve asked you to write for them?
    Cheers
    Gavin

  6. mc
    16 Nov 09
    1:55 pm

    7. “But this bonus Google traffic was going to be of little interest to our advertisers.”

    Because the people involved aren’t in the target audience? If so, this is unlikely to be much of a factor in Murdoch’s thinking, given the relative broadness of most of his properties.

  7. Gavin
    16 Nov 09
    2:08 pm

    8. yeah, and is it normal for da oz to not give link love?

  8. JeffD
    16 Nov 09
    2:27 pm

    9. Murdoch Vs Internet. Ive got my money on the Internet being around longer, and being stronger, even without him!

  9. JeffD
    16 Nov 09
    2:30 pm

    10. If News Ltd ceases all it’s printing tomorrow, would we notice? or would we care? Will the internet survive? Murdoch seems to think it wont without him. The ‘internets’ is already writing his obituary, and News LTD’s. Well, actually, he’s writing the Obit’ for News LTD each time he opens his mouth.

  10. John Grono
    16 Nov 09
    3:00 pm

    11. Jeff … good to see you’re willing to gamble your money away, but not pay for online content. I bet you were also one of those people who said they’d never pay to use a toll road.

  11. JeffD
    16 Nov 09
    3:55 pm

    12. No John;
    I dont pay for online comment, my visits to the sites I do frequent gives them the numbers they need to reach advertisers they need to exist, like a free publication, twhich even News LTD owns a few around the world.

    And why would I want to pay for Tolls when the fuel taxes we pay with every litre are suppose to go into making roads. Why is it ok to take our taxes for roads via the bowser, and then charge us to use the road that our taxes are suppose to produce, that’s a double tax. Good on ya Labor! and all those ’special’ deals you do with corporations to ream everyone, you know, all those blue collar workers your suppose to represent and think about….

  12. Larry
    16 Nov 09
    4:05 pm

    13. who let grampa simpson on here!! and when did he change his name to jeffD

    “a … then b … c would usually follow”

  13. mumbrella
    16 Nov 09
    4:06 pm

    14. Hi Gavin,

    I suspect not. But there again, the tide of outside opinion has tended to be that Murdoch’s plan doesn’t stand a chance. So to have yet another person write that would be pretty boring.

    Cheers,

    Tim

  14. JeffD
    16 Nov 09
    4:21 pm

    15. @ Larry, says the guy who can’t even follow a thread. A thread..? What’s a thread, doh! You must be one of the News LTD Shills sent out like a good republican just like the rest of Fox (Faux) news, to insult anyone that dares says the truth about News LTD, even if it is bad.

  15. Tim Kastelle
    16 Nov 09
    4:57 pm

    16. Nice article Tim. While I’m working at considerably lower volume than you are in terms of readers, I’ve still been giving these issues some thought myself recently. I see your point about the wave of sudden readers not being in your advertisors’ target market, but I’m still not sure that the long-term benefit was modest. For example, how many of the extra 25k might have added you to an RSS feed? I’ll bet there was some kind of jump resulting from the surge. Analytics for blogs still seem to be pretty hard to figure, but I think that at minimum we need to be measuring both hits and feeds. Figuring out how the two interact for a particular blog will end up being quite valuable.

  16. Holgs
    17 Nov 09
    3:39 am

    17. I tend to agree with your comments in the article. I think a lot of people obsess about how their material appears in google, but the reality is that better traffic comes from other sources, and building up a readership of people who value your content. One of the problems google seems to be creating more broadly is that it encourages people to create low-cost, low-value content monetised by low-value advertising (ie. adsense).

  17. John Grono
    17 Nov 09
    8:35 am

    18. … in other words Holgs … it’s a race to the bottom. I wonder why Murdoch doesn’t want to play that game?

  18. Alexander
    17 Nov 09
    9:55 pm

    19. Good on you Mum, enjoyed the Oz article but it cost me $1.50. BTW why don’t you write an article – “Cynicism – a comparison of US and Australian blog respondents” – something like that. Could be amazing findings…….

    Oh, and something for you to mull over – while it may be possible for Rupe to save the day the problem he has is too many advisers who understand too little about the Internet. and have too little imagination. Some even have a proven track record of sending top non Rupe properties downhill. And look what is happening to Myspace……. Let’s hope quality journalism isnt flushed away in the fall-out.