"Paper Tiger" wailing has put up a pay wall to sleepy Google

"(They are) parasites in the large intestine of the Internet." Robert Thompson, editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal under the Murdoch News Group, commented on Google.

At the end of the last century, Nicolas Corchig published the book "The Paper Tiger". The subtitle of the book was "Manipulating Freedom of Speech." The book reveals the history of a group of newspaper giants including Rupert Murdoch. These "paper tigers" manipulate the lyrics. The book had caused a sensation at that time, causing the world’s worries about their monopoly right to speak.

As time went by and entered the new century, "paper tigers" gradually felt the pressure that Google brought them.

Angry denounce

At a public forum in April 2009, as the CEO of News Corporation, Murdoch angrily condemned Google for stealing copyright: “Should we allow Google to steal all our copyrighted content? If you own something like the New York Times or A brand like The Wall Street Journal should not allow Google to do this. We can completely reject Google."

News Corp. Chairman 辛格顿 also said: "We can no longer sit idly by and allow them to stole the fruits of our work under seemingly legitimate theories."

Murdoch also called on his peers to jointly fight back. Anthony Moore, director of the American Online News Association, echoed: “The websites of major newspapers in the United States should be held together and demand that search engines such as Google pay more attention to the value of original content. For example, if Google does not comply with relevant conditions, all newspaper websites may Suspending the cooperation with Google, as long as the time lasts for a week or so, Google will feel the pressure of lack of content."

A Google spokesperson stated that all content released by Google complied fully with the relevant provisions of the U.S. copyright law: “We only provided titles and content feeds on Google’s site. If Internet users want to see the full text, they need to go to publish the content. Newspaper website."

Google’s lawyer Maiji River also wrote on the blog that Google not only did not harm the interests of the newspaper industry, but was beneficial to it. He said: "Regardless of whether the news source is on Google or on the newspaper's own website, whether Google's profit model is based on advertising or subscription, Google has brought a lot of traffic to the newspaper's website."

But Jonathan Miller, Murdoch’s chief digital officer, did not agree with this statement: “The largest number of users from Google is to look at an article and go away. This kind of traffic has no value for us.”

At that time, most publishers, including newspapers, provided content on the Internet for free. Their initial idea was to compensate for the loss of revenue in the issuance of subscriptions by attracting a large online audience.

“The dream breaks through the south window”, and the newspaper industry is faced with a painful reality: Although the traffic generated by search engines has a certain value for marketing, it does not bring the real income they hope because advertisers will not Pay for random clicks. James Harding, editor of The Times, said: "The casual visitors, like the pedestrians who browse through the windows of Oxford Street in downtown London, never enter the store."

Murdoch’s News Corporation estimates that an average news viewer who occasionally enters the website brings an annual marginal income of less than 0.1 pence. The GroupM advertising company believes in a research briefing that most news viewers are "useless visitors." Not only do they not pay fees, but they have almost no advertising potential. The newsletter concludes: "Free distribution of high quality Content is like selfish food. What you distribute is value, and what you end up with is bankruptcy."

Fallen tree in the forest

“I hope everyone will think about what your readers really want. The media is ultimately a service industry. If you let readers down, you won't get anything,” said Google CEO Schmidt.

Google also said strongly that if the newspapers are willing, they can remove content from Google search. "If content publishers don't want us to crawl their content, we can use a simple technology to put a specific website. Content is excluded from the Google Web Links Index."

The writer Jeff Jarvis said: "The content of unlinked is just as unknown as a fallen tree in the forest."

“Traditional media is barefooted in order to get more views. Once they discover that this type of profit model has failed to be irreparable, they suddenly realize that they are victims.” “Newsweek” commented that the magazine also rebounded Traditional media apologized to online media. “Our business model is slowly ageing, but this is not your fault. We have resisted the Internet for a long time, but we have not luridly linked our content to the Internet.”

“When people are trying to avoid a dilemma, they often fall into another dilemma.” This is what the strategic master Machiavelli said.

Schmidt is not brazen that the publisher should focus on mobile technology and open up new channels for news transmission. He believes that reading news on a mobile device such as a mobile phone will eventually be as enjoyable as reading a good magazine.

Subsequently, Murdoch and the Associated Press CEO Tim Curley once again shelled Google, that Google provides links to their news content, but did not pay them, this behavior is the "thief." Google got a lot of income through this "shameless" theft and caused the newspaper to get into trouble.

Murdoch said: “The plagiarist should pay for the use of our content as soon as possible. If we can't use the current situation to turn to paid content, then the ultimate cost will be the content creator, and the plagiarist will win.”

Collie echoed: "The third-party organizations are free to develop news content without permission and without contribution. Our content producers react too slowly to this."

Writer Gabriel Sherman believes that News Corp.'s owner Murdoch was “very wounded on the Google issue and is ready to go to the law... He doesn’t trust Google at all”.

Jason Karakanis, the CEO of knowledge-sharing website Mahalo, suggested that Murdoch let its competitor Microsoft Bing obtain exclusive rights to index content while blocking Google, and use it to charge Microsoft.

“When that happens, the Libra of Rights will be biased toward the content website, and Google may have a real fear of the content site at that time. Google will do everything possible to preserve its indexing powers, including the possible payment to News Corp. Google has found this weakness." Caracanis guessed this way.

He seems to guess right.

Microsoft joins the group

"This is entirely Microsoft's intention to undermine Google's profit margin." An online publisher commented on Microsoft's move with Murdoch.

In November 2009, Microsoft began discussions with News Corp., which involved Microsoft paying News Corp. and removing news content from Google’s search results. Microsoft also approached other large online publishers and made the same persuasive. An Internet publisher contacted by Microsoft said: "If the search engine is willing to pay to include us in the search results, the program will give the content a huge value."

It is suspected that Murdoch's amnesty attack on Google in April was carefully planned because Microsoft released its heavy product, Bing, a search engine. Murdoch seems to have made it a fortuitous opportunity.

Murdoch said that once News Corp. begins to charge its content, he may leave its news content out of Google's search engine. He said: "I prefer to come to our site fewer people, as long as they come to pay users." From the outside world, Murdoch is trying to get rid of Google, and instead cooperate with Microsoft's Bing. For a long time, Microsoft executives have clearly indicated that they are very keen to take strong measures to break Google’s dominance in the search market. Microsoft plans to use Bing to induce media out of the Google ecosystem so that Bing can search for more news content.

About 23% of Murdoch’s flagship “Wall Street Journal” website traffic is attracted by Google, but this part of the traffic probably brings less than $5 million in advertising revenue. In view of this, Murdoch hopes that Microsoft can provide higher returns.

With this Microsoft card, Murdoch became emboldened. In an interview with the Australian Sky News Channel, he said: "I think we will remove web content from Google search, but we will wait until we start charging." He added that Google and other search engines "stolen "The content of News Corp. However, these guys should not always use the content for free, publishers awaken!

"Financial Times" commented: "Murdoch tried to prevent Google from searching the contents of its newspapers to change the layout of the Internet economy. This is a self-destructive act at first glance. After News Corp. negotiated with Microsoft and turned to support Bing, many of his peers and technologists all share this idea.” But the paper went on to say that Murdoch’s move is intriguing and reasonable for other media groups that have survived Google’s dominance. He may not be able to achieve the result he wants, but try it, he has no loss.

Just like the grandson said: "The land of the dead is saved, and it is buried in the dead place. Then the people of the husband are killed and they can be defeated."

"The practice of News Corporation may set off a storm in the entire newspaper industry. The vast majority of newspapers may be united." The publisher of the Dallas Morning News, Jim Moroni, said that he also believes that this part of Google's traffic cannot Generate economic benefits.

Schmidt, who was CEO of Google at that time, told Murdoch that he would “charge the Internet content”. He said “Overall, Internet content charges are not suitable for general news content because there are enough free content on the Internet. I think, Internet content charging is suitable for niche and very professional content, not for all content." Google’s internal reason for this view is related to profits. Murdoch once pointed out sharply: “If Google and other search engines must pay for all the contents of newspaper websites, companies like Google basically have no profit.”

The writer Michael Wolfe claimed that Murdoch’s blocking of Google’s behavior was tantamount to being seized from the world’s largest information market.

The problem is not only that, but Murdoch News Corp.’s exclusive cooperation with Microsoft may lead to investigations by antitrust regulators. A professional pointed out: "The News Group's move will trigger a serious anti-monopoly problem."

Former Federal Trade Commission antitrust officer David Barto said that antitrust regulators may think that Microsoft's efforts to save money will inhibit competition in the online search market. He said, "This exclusive transaction will inevitably attract the attention of antitrust regulators. The transaction will reduce consumers' choices."

Another point is that if you really want to start charging, Google can't afford it, and Microsoft can't afford it.

“Imagine if the digital content network links of major newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times will only be provided to Microsoft Bing in the future, which is indeed conducive to the growth of Bing traffic. The Internet news content is very large, and it is far from being covered by several mainstream newspapers. If Bing wishes to reach a similar cooperation agreement with all the newspaper groups, it will need to pay a huge sum of money,” TechCrunch website analyzed.

Therefore, the cooperation between Microsoft and Murdoch is also a disguised form, each with its own abacus. “The mountains reflect the sunny days, and the grass is ruthless, even outside the sun.”

In December 2009, at a press conference held by Microsoft at the city of San Francisco, a reporter asked Microsoft Satya Nadera, Microsoft’s senior director of online services, about Microsoft’s payment to the media. He responded by saying: “ We will not seek exclusive content. We do not wish to obtain all exclusive content that cannot be included in the Google search engine index by paying."

Wrapping up Microsoft Bing is just one of Murdoch’s methods to counter Google. Murdoch is brewing a larger war against Google and has also pulled Jobs’s Apple company.

Battle of Alessia

"My life is one war after another," said Murdoch, who at the age of 79 voluntarily launched a combat plan code-named "Alesia."

The reason why the program started from such a name is not profound.

The historical battle of Alesia was written by Paul K. Davis, "100 decisive battles influencing the course of human history." The battle took place in 52 BC, when Caesars of Rome led his regiment to attack Agracia, which belongs today to France, and attacked the Gaul forces, who were several times their own. Alesia is a fortress built on the top of the hill. Due to his inability to storm, Caesar decided to use the strength of the civil engineering techniques of the Romans to build a wall around Alesia and force his opponents to surrender. Caesar established a double wall, surrounded by Alesia’s garrison, and the outer layer to resist the other’s reinforcements. Finally, the wall tactics have been successful.

Murdoch’s Alesia plan is to build a news “paywall” to drive Google out of his news kingdom. The program not only paid for content from the Wall Street Journal, The Times, and other Murdoch news organizations, but also tried to establish partnerships with other newspaper industry chain groups to include their content in paid services.

Merck's "The Times" took the first step and launched a beta version of the new website. Shortly afterwards, the newspaper circumvented the new site with a tight paywall, forcing Google to retrieve its articles. Readers had to pay £2 a week or £1 a day to enter the site and read articles.

Subsequently, Murdoch plans to promote this type of paid wall tactics to other newspapers and periodicals. During the period, there appeared on the market new products that Murdoch regards as reinforcements. This is Apple's iPad. When the products are on the market, they are praised by Murdoch and called it "a glimpse of the future."

"There will be tens of thousands of iPads sold in the future, which may save the paper industry because you don't need to spend paper, ink, printing and shipping.” Murdoch believes that the launch of the iPad will not destroy the newspapers because Different ways of communication. But Jobs has his own plan. His plan is different from Murdoch's Alesia plan.

Some of the original partners who were interested in Murdoch's Alesia project were attracted by the Jobs iPad app store and left Murdoch. They wanted to make their own mobile and iPad strategies, rather than obey Murdoch. Dispatch.

Therefore, Murdoch had to make his own efforts to cope with the siege of the paywall. The opposition is not just from Google. Some traditional media have also questioned this.

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, compared Murdoch’s paywall to “the Berlin Wall”. Insiders even criticized Merck: "On the surface, all media are called to build paywalls, but what they really think is - so as to grab their readers."

Future Publishing Company CEO Steve Slimlin believes that Murdoch’s paywall plan will eventually fail because it is inconsistent with market guidelines, that is, consumers’ attitudes towards digital content. She said: “The basic principle of the market is that people only look for free alternatives instead of paying for them. If luck is good, I also hope that the paywall plan can develop smoothly. But market rules tell us that this is not possible. This is a Murdoch-only game."

“Stones are falling apart, cracking the shore, rolling up thousands of piles of snow.” In the face of Murdoch’s pressing, Google is also planning for a rainy day. It had sought to create a news charging platform under its control. Shortly after the launch of Murdoch’s paywall, Google launched a contact with the Italian newspaper publishers, inviting them to test Newspass, the upcoming news service platform. The specific details are: Google is ready to launch a paid content management system that allows publishers to Submit content that requires payment to read. When users search, Google will submit search results that include both paid and free content. Users can access paid content only after paying through Google's online payment system. Google and content providers will share the proceeds.

On July 17, 2010, Murdoch’s “The Times” statistics show that since the erection of the paywall, the readership of its website has decreased by 2/3. Not only the website, but also the distribution of its newspapers has also been affected. According to statistics from the United Kingdom Distribution Authority, the newspaper’s circulation in August was 494,205, which was below 500,000 for the first time since 1994, compared to the decline in July. 1.76%.

“British winds fluttered with the fan, and the fire broke the ship.” In October of this year, some media reported that although Murdoch did not publicly acknowledge that Alessia’s plan had failed, in fact, the plan to invest 30 million US dollars had been cancelled.

"Google is a pirate leader"

In January 2012, Murdoch criticized Google on Twitter. He said that Google is a "great company and has done a lot of exciting things. There is only one fault, but this problem is very serious." The problem he said was clearly "piracy." He openly stated: "Google is a pirate leader. They provide free streaming movies and sell advertising. No wonder they will spend millions of dollars lobbying."

A Twitter user stated that as the leader of the “Eavesdropping Door” protagonist, Murdoch did not qualify for plagiarism, but he replied impolitely: “There is no objection to punishing eavesdropping. Punishing piracy has attracted attention. Everyone's ignorant opposition."

Google spokesman Samantha Smith said against Murdoch’s attack: “This is simply nonsense. We removed 5 million illegal pages from search engines last year and invested more than $6 million in combating bad advertising.” (The author Jiang Hongjun, this article is taken from "Google situation", published by Science Press)

Author's notes

Google's salvation

“Now, after bullying the news publishing industry to dying, Google is interested in treating it. This is not just a business motive but also a consideration based on citizenship,” writes writer James Fallows.

"They are under a triple blow." Schmidt used to describe the status of traditional media. "The classified ads are gone, the circulation is gone, Internet full-screen ads appear, and the value of cross-page ads for customers on newspapers disappears."

“This is a tragedy. The basic structure of an industry collapsed.” Google’s senior management Nikosh Arora commented on the news publishing industry. “Google has a deep symbiotic relationship with serious news organizations. We help people search Content, but we don't produce content. As long as there are good articles, people will search for them. Once the good articles are all gone, it will be very difficult for people to maintain their search enthusiasm. We have a fundamental footing."

Therefore, Google seems to be ready to do some work to make up. Schmidt gave a speech on Google's policy at a conference attended by editors of various major news organizations. He said, "We will work together to help each other." He also stated that the existence of high-level journalism is indispensable for the modern society to function well. According to reports, Google is also working hard to develop technologies that can help the publishing industry.

If the big guys don't have great wisdom and refuse to take on their obligations to produce excellent content, then this historic responsibility and honor may fall on the shoulders of others.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said: "I am willing to help those high-quality newspapers, because we can not use blogs as our news source. The fact is that we need a real news perspective than ever before." Although Jobs has gone, his philosophy is still guiding Apple.

According to Vijay Lavender, chief digital officer of the Washington Post, the importance of emerging social networks such as Facebook to news organizations is reminiscent of the impact of search engines such as Google on the media industry a decade ago. "Facebook is very important, and it will only become more and more important." He said, "We are betting on this."