I’m really not sure that dubbing Google an Internet “parasite” and “tech tapeworm” is really the way to win friends and influence people. But hey, I’ve been wrong before.
Here’s the nut of the story:
Thomson said Google benefited from aggregating content from The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers.
“Google argues they drive traffic to sites, but the whole Google sensibility is inimical to traditional brand loyalty,” he said.
“Google encourages promiscuity — and shamelessly so — and therefore a significant proportion of their users don’t necessarily associate that content with the creator.
“Therefore revenue that should be associated with the creator is not garnered.”
In contrast, Thomson noted Dow Jones’ Factiva information service paid licence fees to its content providers. “The model is entirely different and certainly proper,” he said.
Okay, let’s take those one at a time:
- Google benefits from aggregating content from users: Sure. The more content Google can aggregate, the more useful it becomes, and Google can benefit by selling ads to a large audience. (This is, of course, how newspaper economics work.)
- Google encourages promiscuity/erodes traditional brand loyalty: Yes, this is how the Internet works. (Okay, that was snarky, but it’s true — people want content; they really don’t care where it comes from, as long as it’s accurate.)
- Revenue that should be associated with the creator is not garnered: Well, this one depends on how you think revenue “should” be garnered, or associated with the creator. In my opinion, what a content creator is generally doing is adding a degree of value to the content that’s created. Sometimes, with what passes for news, that value is extremely low (i.e., every story about a State of the Union speech.) Sometimes — more often in the WSJ’s case — the value is pretty substantial, so much so that people will pay for it. Note, however, that the distinction between the two originates in the value the creator adds, not in the amount of the content that’s siphoned off by an aggregator. So the simple solution for news organizations is to add more value. If you do that, you can either put it behind a pay wall, or care less whether Google aggregates it — you’ll still be associated with the content because no one else is doing something as useful/unique/stupendously awesome.
- Dow Jones’ Factiva service pays license fees to content providers: Who’s ever heard of Factiva? Oh, wait, I Googled it. Here it is.
Now, on to the second part of the story.
Thomson’s comments came as Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation (owner of The Wall Street Journal and The Australian) revealed last week News was considering an investment in a Kindle-like e-reader.
OK, I won’t belabor this one, but: There’s no need for each and every news organization to make its own e-reader. The Kindle has already captured pretty decent market share; why not take the resources you would spend on re-inventing the Kindle and use them to, say, add value to your content?
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