by SEO Consultant
R. Falconer
R. Falconer
It's been widely commented that News Corp removing its content from Google News is likely to end in disaster for the newspapers involved. However, he could just be onto a winner without the search engines.Rupert Murdoch has said that he'll pull his titles out of Google News and set up a subscription service instead. This is basically true but it is an overly simplistic description of his plans. Murdoch didn't take The Sun from being a struggling broadsheet to being Britain's top selling tabloid or successfully start up the first pay-per-view TV events in the UK without knowing that you have to have a product that people want to buy in order to make money.
So, how do you get people to pay for content that is free elsewhere? The loudest answer booming across the web is that it won't happen and that News Corp newspapers are doomed. This widespread negativity seems to stem not only from logic, but also from a fear of change in the status quo and an understandable distaste for all things Murdoch.
The eventual outcome won't be as straightforward as many are predicting. News Corp, which has a huge amount of media power in the form of TV networks and newspapers in the US, UK and Australia will not let part of its business simply slip down the plug hole as many commentators seem to be speculating.
Murdoch has made it clear that he expects his readership to decrease but that he expects to make more money. That's not an unreasonable concept - News Corp's Sky TV channels would have more viewers if they were free.
The challenge lies in creating the desire for the product. Murdoch has mentioned that his newspapers have strong enough brands to sell online even if they are removed from Google. How true this is is yet to be seen. It would be surprising though, if more value was not added.
itunes has been very successful in selling mp3s but its success was not down to the content (which was available for sale elsewhere and for free illegally) but rather the service that they provided. iTunes gave users an easy interface that allowed them to buy mp3s and put them straight on to an Apple iPod with the minimum of fuss.
Apple's iTunes model won't have escaped the attention of news Corp and it's no surprise that News Corp is investing in a Kindle-style ebook If you can make an ebook with iPod-like popularity and provide attractive purchase options such as giving the hardware for free based on a subscription to the digital version of The Times then suddenly it might be possible to start making money from newspaper content.
That's just one example but you can bet that Rupert Murdoch is smart enough to be asking what people are willing to pay for rather than how to charge for something that everyone gets for free.
