Posted 11/13/09 at 02:51:10 PM by Bart Salisbury

The pay-to-play debate for online media content heated up a bit with the announcement by News Corp. that Rupert Murdoch was reading to pull the plug on Google’s access to its online content. Jonathan Miller, the chief digital officer of News Corp. told the Monaco Media Forum “We believe that the value of high quality content is not recognized online so something needs to happen.” That something, according to Miller, will not happen right away, but in “months or quarters.”

Murdoch has long made it known that he deserves compensation for the content he provides online, and is actively pursuing ways to generate revenue more directly than advertising. The Wall Street Journal, for example, requires paid subscription for full access (although there are ways around this). However, the online market hasn’t been kind to those who put up such barriers. Apparently Murdoch believes that a leader is needed to make the first bold move, after which others will follow. “We will lead. There is a pent up need for this,” said Miller. There is also a pent up need for News Corp. to get its hands on a bit of the advertising revenue Google’s search engines generate, and which News Corp doesn’t share in.

Miller was dismissive of Google’s importance, at least for the News Corp.: “The traffic which comes in from Google brings a consumer who more often than not read one article and then leaves the site. That is the least valuable of traffic to us… the economic impact is not as great as you might think. You can survive without it.”

Google’s response was as expected: “Publishers put their content on the web because they want it to be found, so very few choose not to include their material in Google News and web search. But if they tell us not to include it, we don't.”

Whether News Corp can survive without Google is a question only pulling the plug will answer. It remains to be seen if News Corp. will follow through on their threat.

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Posted 10/26/09 at 04:10:31 PM by Bart Salisbury

Hard times come quickly for social networking sites. One minute you’re on top, popping open bottles of vintage sparkling mineral water and picking up the tab for another round of tofu burgers. The next you are head-in-hands wonder how it all went so horribly wrong. Today’s patient on the couch is MySpace, with parent company News Corp. none to pleased with what’s going on.

Jonathan Miller, who keeps the watcher’s eye on News Corp.’s Internet services, put it pretty plainly: "The thing you see in this space more than anything else is that if you don't keep innovating and moving forward, you get in trouble. You can't stop. And MySpace stopped." MySpace’s stopped and, since being number one in 2006, has been outpaced by more popular alternatives: Facebook and Twitter.

Time, again, to reinvent the wheel, according to Miller, and return to what MySpace does best: music and gaming. MySpace recently purchased the online music provider iLike. And it has announced a new music video service which will allow labels and artists to see how well their music is doing on MySpace.

To expand gaming opportunities, Miller believes MySpace must open up its system to external developers. He also hinted that some paid premium services to be in the offing.

"Everybody in the company is upset that we didn't keep going when we had the real momentum. Regaining momentum is always much harder than keeping momentum going,” Miller stated. That, and keeping an eye on your rearview mirror to see who’s about to overtake you.

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Posted 10/09/09 at 03:20:23 PM by Bart Salisbury

The free lunch of information on the Internet is about to end, if The Associated Press (AP) and Rupert Murdoch’s News Crop. have their way. Murdoch threw down the gauntlet during his opening address at the World Media Summit in Bejing, stating “the aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content.”

The issue, for Curly and Murdoch, is the use of their content in search engines, by aggregators, and by bloggers. For too long, according to Tom Curley, chief executive of the AP, have the likes of Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook gotten a free ride on the backs of the “people who devote themselves--at great human and economic cost--to gather news of public interest.” It’s now time to pay up.

The AP’s position is logical given its present financial situation, and the shifting nature of advertising on the Internet. The AP saw a decrease of revenues, from $748 million in 2008 to $700 in 2009, in part due to a shifting away from traditional news sources. Murdoch, on the other hand, is just being Murdoch, advancing his long held views that news content, regardless of how provided, should be paid for. The Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal online already requires a subscription, and Murdoch is exploring similar options for his other holdings, including The New York Post and The London Times.

If the AP and News Corp. are successful, other news providers are certain to follow. This could be bad news for bloggers, many of who consolidate and interpret breaking information from a variety of sources to keep their readers informed. It would also serve to suppress the relatively free-flow of information the Internet now experiences.

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