News Corp plans to move off Google
News Corp wants to remove its news content from Google and team up with Microsoft search engine Bing. Microsoft is considering paying News Corp to feature its content. Jennifer Collins reports.
Google Chrome pulled up on a Web browser (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Stacey Vanek-Smith: Google is -- no question -- the 800-pound gorilla of search. But now someone is taking a shot at the mammoth from Mountain View. The Financial Times reports News Corp wants to remove its content from Google, and it's looking to team up with a tech titan of its own. Marketplace's Jennifer Collins has more.
Jennifer Collins: News Corp wants to get paid for its newspaper stories available online. It's owner, Rupert Murdoch, has been vocal about how he thinks news companies need to charge for Web content.
Now, he has a new plan. The Financial Times reports his company is in discussions to take its content off Google and move it to Microsoft's search engine Bing. The talks are in the early stages, but the idea is that Microsoft might pay to feature News Corp's papers.
Caroline Wiertz of the Cass Business School in London says this could drive other media companies to do the same thing.
Caroline Wiertz: If we then come into a world where you can't basically Google all content anymore and get it for free, then I think consumers would be incentivized. And News Corp is large enough to make that first move and I think they realize that.
For now, it seems this is just about newspaper articles. But it could help Microsoft chip away at Google's dominance. Bing accounted for less than 10 percent of online searches last month.
I'm Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Huntington Beach, CA, 11/23/2009
Murdoch is trying to push on a string. He assumes people start out wanting News corp's articles. But if they did, they would just go to the site. If they don't care, news is a widely-available generic commodity. Price competition has lowered it to be worth the price of its media. So, opting out of google will just make News Corp's web site invisible to most of the net, and reduce ad volume.
By buying a computer and net service, internet users have already paid for most of the media.
From San Antonio, TX, 11/23/2009
My issue with Bing is it still feels no better than Google. I think most people will realize the "decision engine" mumbo jumbo as vaporware and stick to whatever they're currently doing.
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