How to kill Google (or take 10 points of search search share in six months)

Ofcourse, that would imply that Google will sit quietly watching for Microsoft to take their marketshare. Never gonna happen. Supply and demand? As the demand grows, the prices are bound to increase and I’m pretty sure Google will offer a competitive price in the market. The news papers have more to win by collaborating with Google and taking advantage of their existing market share than to bet on bing, especially when the chance that ALL the others won’t do the same.

Also, Murdoch just wants to save the press. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about google or Bing. He just wants people to pay for the content that they’re getting online. (WSJ already asks you to, but with other news, like the nytimes, it’s simply not viable to keep offering them free of cost relying on revenue from the news paper sales. Murdoch just wants everyone to start charging for news.

I would probably start to use Bing all the time. I know and
trust information from the WSJ, Businessweek, Fox, Inc,
Fast Company, etc and if the only place to get it was Bing?
I would have to start using Bing, which means I would click
on more PPC ads on their sites and view more of their display
ads in turn generating more revenue for them.

Plus if they make it even easier to search their magazine /
newspaper content partners by having a filter set up already
that allows me to search only the trusted newspapers and
magazines articles and not get hit with blogs, I am in 100%.

If 1,000 of the top newspapers decided to do this, then 100% I
would use Bing daily. In fact, it might be a great strategy
for Mahalo to start using?

twitter@mcalvey

a) It would, but 1000 organizations would never do it en masse. Google sends too much traffic and there’s too much fear about losing it. But 1000 organizations don’t need to. Newscorp will launch “front-ends” to their content that Google can index and that sit outside of their (Newscorp’s) pay wall. Google can still send them (the front end) traffic, and you can still read a summary, but you’ll have to pay for the good stuff; also, you’ll only have to pay for the “information.” Very soon, news, or “facts,” will be free (and when I say “free,” I mean ad supported), and information, i.e. the interpenetration of the world’s events through the eyes of a person who you associate with or you think is intelligent, etc., will cost money. This distinction will start the sea change with traditional media and its transformation to new media.

b) Rarely; only when I missed something, or I need to send it to a friend. Frankly, I want my news delivered via a stream; I want it curated by someone I trust, and I want it delivered in real time, i.e. when it’s created or distributed.

c) Zero; see my scenario above.

One last point. My guess is that all this saber rattling by Murdoch is a negotiating gambit.

Fox wants a special deal with Google just like the AP is rumored to have negotiated. (Not that Murdoch probably uses search or even a PC for that matter. But he’s smart enough to know how to wrangle a deal.)

I don’t think Murdoch is as backwards thinking as everyone says he is. He’s a showman.

Brilliant Jason. Leave it to you to make all search engines worse for the consumer.

If Bing indexes Newscorp then Google will index Bing results or some other intermediary.

How are you going to convince a newspaper whose only hope of survival is building (and monetizing) an online user base that people who use Google won’t ever find their content?

The strategy might work for a few big national papers, but I doubt a local paper will want to gamble on that.

i agree this could bring 10% of search share to bing but on the same note i agree that google wouldnt sit by and watch. I dont want results from wall street journal i have to buy a subscription and i dont have one. i think the dude wants to make money off of newspapers but i point to my previous blog post that they need to figure out how to monetize their traffic and stop just blocking poeople who like and want to use their traffic

People don’t use a search engine just for newspaper. This woudln’t be as drastic as you think. You think the average person would care? They just want fast, clean, easy to read results. I’m sure websites that aren’t as high in search results would be happy about this as well. A free boost!

I think it’s a ploy for some type of revenue sharing with Google. I’ll allow you to crawl my site, if you give me a percentage of revenue you make from ads when people search for something on my site. Instead of Newscorp sitting around waiting for someone to pitch what you suggested already on TWIST, they decided to force the hand. Play with us or we’ll block you. We’ve checked our traffic sources. We know exactly how much this will hurt us. We know how many unique visitors come from google and how much money we make off that traffic. We also can estimate how much adword money you’re making on Newscorp keywords. We would rather a piece of that pie, than the money we make off of Google generated traffic.

@cak: correct (I think). But if it works, and Bing becomes say 1/6
the size of Google, then they will only need to pay 9 times what
Google makes newspapers earn, and so on.

Are you people stupid? Why even use a search engine if you
already know and trust news information from WSJ, NYTimes, Fox,
Businessweek, etc. Just go to the news site DIRECTLY! Bookmark
the site and then simply go to it, instead of using a search
engine and THEN going to the site. It seems to me most people
have no clue how to use a computer or the internet. There’s
really no reason to use a search engine for news if you already
know and trust specific news source.

a) If 1,000 major publications pursued this strategy, would it work?

I doubt it, there is a a reason google is a verb.

b) If you would only search the top 1,000 newspapers and magazines on Bing, would you use it? How often?

Rarely, if ever. I think this would only ever affect researchers and journalists tbh, the half-life of news is short.

c) What is the percentage chance this will happen (I need a #), and why?

2-5% (if that) There is a reason the publishing industry has gone into decline, and it’s not just the dearth of advertising. The internet and the rise of the aggregator has cut the model to ribbons, the problem is that people now consume stories as opposed to reading papers. Those that are actually interested will already have news delivered via RSS, and then there are things like twitter & the blogosphere. The idea that anyone would actually search for news seems positively old-fashioned. All that would happen would be that the papers themselves would slowly fade from view and from conciousness, if their stories are not agregated & blogged, then they would be read a lot less. Their voice, however distinctive, would eventually be lost to the breeze.

You Jason, more than most must understand the disruptive nature of technology, you even ask for people to write reviews on itunes, knowing that the more comments something gets the more likley it will to be listened too. Simply getting people to read and/or listen is 80% of the effort. The barrier to entry here is low, if you place barriers in the path of people who want your content, they’ll get the same news and content elsewhere, it’s not like there is a shortage of news & opinion, regardless of your politics. Any attempt to create scarcity where none exists will simply be bypassed or ignored, be that via a pay wall or by a google death sentance.

I would love it if the big news organizations tried this. Because it would only pave the way for smaller news organizations, to flourish.
Have you ever heard of Knight Ridder? Let’s get real, these big boys hardly have any journalists anyways.
They get all their content from news services, and their only true contribution is their editorials, which in my opinion are quite lacking to say the least. This kind of a move will kill them, we’ll still get our news and they will be competing with free. Good riddance.

GO BING! I support Bing in every move.

For months now i’ve been writing the New York Times, News corp and everyone else I could think of about a new advertising concept that I came up with that I believe would not only save the newspaper and magazine industry but also tackle the Internet “toll Booth” question and tackle google head on. Do you think that someone out there cares. Havent recieved one responce. My next move is to contact my smaller local paper, The patriot ledger and sell them on the “New Concept” if I can get my foot in the door . The N.A.A. who I thought would like to take a peak nver responded. I guess the mindset is you have to be a Big player in the game to have the answers. Somestimes you have to look just outside the box…to get back in. There loss.