Tag Archives: Rupert Murdoch

Mumbrella: Murdoch to remove sites from Google’s index?

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Following his comments last month in which he described aggregators as ‘kleptomaniacs’ and ‘plagiarists’, Rupert Murdoch has suggested News Corp could remove its sites from Google’s index.

Speaking in an interview with Australia’s Sky News (video below): “I think we will [remove our content from Google’s index]. But that’s when we start charging.”

As Mumbrella explains: “Using the robots.txt protocol on a site indicates to automated web spiders such as Google’s not to index that particular page or to serve up links to it in users’ search results.”

In the interview, Murdoch also discusses what could be put behind potential news site pay walls.

Full post at this link…

What’s Murdoch’s ‘cool new toy’ for accessing media content?

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Australian media is busy speculating over Rupert Murdoch’s new idea for content access.

Margaret Simons of the Content Makers, reports how Caroline Overington, senior writer and columnist with The Australian (part of Murdoch’s News Limited) let slip that Rupert Murdoch’s pay wall plans might include a ‘cool new toy’ for accessing media content.

Simons reports from the Media140 conference:

“Overington said that News Limited had many wonderful plans of which they were very proud, and they could not be unveiled yet, but she believed they would lead people to pay for content.

“Then in the closing stages of the session, she referred to iTunes, and how people had turned to paying for music that they could get elsewhere for free because of the entry of a ‘cool new toy’ in the iPhone.

“She added: ‘That’s kind of what we are thinking about.’

“So what is it, I wonder? Some kind of deal with Apple, soon to release its new electronic reader? A competing product? Very intriguing.”

An update, pointing to coverage of the Apple Tablet negotiations, with more speculation on the ‘iRupert’ at this link.

And Overington at Media140 courtesy of SlowTV.

MediaGuardian: New pay walls will be delayed, says Murdoch

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Rupert Murdoch has said the schedule for introducing pay walls to newspaper website including the Sun, the Times and the New York Post is ‘slipping’.

According to this MediaGuardian report, the News Corp owner said he couldn’t promise to meet the original date of before June next year (the end of News Corp’s financial year).

Murdoch has also been talking with rival publishers, including the Telegraph in the UK, it is reported.

Full story at this link…

Aggregators, plagiarists and kleptomaniacs: Rupert Murdoch’s Beijing speech in full

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In a speech to the Beijing World Media Summit last Friday, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch attacked news aggregators and search engines. The ‘aggregators and plagiarists’ will soon have to pay the price for using publishers’ content for free, he said.

If publishers and news organisations don’t regain control they will pay ‘the ultimate price’ and it will be ‘the kleptomaniacs who triumph’, he told the industry event.

A Wordle of his keynote is understandably dominated by ‘China’, given the event’s location, with ‘digital’ overshadowing ‘newspapers’ in this instance:

Wordle of Rupert Murdoch's speech to the Beijing World Media Summit

Below you can read the speech in full:

AP: Search engines must pay up, say Murdoch and AP’s Curley

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Publishers must take back control of their content from search engines, aggregators and bloggers, which have become the ‘preferred customer destinations for breaking news’, the Associated Press’ (AP) Tom Curley has said at an industry summit in Beijing.

“We will no longer tolerate the disconnect between people who devote themselves – at great human and economic cost – to gathering news of public interest and those who profit from it without supporting it,” Curley said (though slightly strangely citing Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook as key examples of threats).

Speaking separately at the event, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch said ‘the aggregators and plagiarists’ would soon have to pay the price for using publishers’ content for free.

If publishers and news organisations don’t regain control they will pay ‘the ultimate price’ and it will be ‘the kleptomaniacs who triumph’, he added.

Earlier this week the Associated Press (AP) said it is considering whether it could sell news items to online clients for a short, exclusive period.

The agency is also developing a new system for tracking its content online and monitoring copyright infringements.

Full story at this link…

SMH.com.au: News Corp in ‘second phase’ of paid-for content plan

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The Sydney Morning Herald has obtained an email to News Corp online staff, from the company’s digital chief executive, Richard Freudenstein, indicating that paid-for content plans, as announced by Murdoch in August, were now in a ‘second phase’.

“The key points from Mr Freudenstein’s communique to News Digital Media (NDM) staff were that the company was reassured by the research it had conducted and that it was proceeding to the next round of development.

“‘News has conducted some audience research here in Australia and in the UK and US, which gives us confidence that, if we get the product and delivery system right, people will happily pay for news content online, on their computer, mobile, e-reader or other device,’ Mr Freudenstein told staff. ‘Here in Sydney we are about to move into the second phase of the project.'”

Full post at this link…

Reuters: Google CEO raises doubts about Murdoch’s online pay walls

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Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, yesterday questioned Rupert Murdoch’s plans to put general news content behind pay walls at some of the News Corp titles, Reuters reports.

General news publishers would find it hard to charge for their content because too much is available for free elsewhere, Schmidt argued, speaking via video link to the Royal Television Society audience in Cambridge.

“[M]y guess is for niche and specialist markets … it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news.”

Full post at this link…

paidContent: WSJ ready to start charging for mobile apps

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The Wall Street Journal is ready to start charging for mobile access on the Blackberry and iPhone and the video site Hulu can be expected to introduce some kind of payment model, News Corp CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch told delegates at the the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVIII Conference.

Full story at this link…

Journalism Daily: Alex Brummer on the economic crisis, BBC director-general’s email and a shout-out to freelancers

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