MS kills 'Bing buys the news' furore, but Google could still lose it

Microsoft has firmly ruled out the notion of paying news publishers to de-index their content from Google. But you knew that already. Speaking at the unveiling of new Bing features in San Francisco yesterday, senior online services VP Satya Nadella said that Microsoft was not focused on getting exclusive content, and that "there …

[Anonymous Coward]

Targeted ads

Until advertisers recognise that I will block any advert that moves or makes a noise I really don't think they can use the term 'targeted'.

It's only targeted if I look at it and think "I'll read more about that!", instead of "Where's that ad block button gone?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Google de-indexing stupidity

Interesting developments, John.

Amusing that FT proffered that hoax of a news story about MS paying to de-list. DUH. Can anyone think of a more inane strategy? The only reason why it had legs is because everyone knows Microsoft has no vision, only monopoly profits via threats at pulling Windows from OEMs.

Note that Murdoch never said they're losing money on news...they're just not making the obscene profits of the last 20 yrs.

The print division of News Corp. had PROFITS of >$100M last year...while News Corp in total makes a profit of TWO BILLION dollars. Murdoch's just not happy with $100M annual profits in news.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=auLAq.mSAkyA

Btw, all the infecting WSJ *Opinion* columns are free-to-view, not behind the sub. wall.

[Anonymous Coward]

News organisations can stop indexing

A couple of meta tags on a web page will stop Google from indexing a site. So why don't newspapers do so?

[Keith Doyle]

Easy...

Why not use meta tags to block Google indexing?

Because that doesn't generate sympathy coverage in the press from all that whining, that's why..

[John Lettice]

Re: MS kills 'Bing buys the news' furore, but Google could still lose it

As I keep saying, they're only going to do it if there's a business case for doing it. Murdoch has threatened to do it, probably because he thinks that will have some positive effect on subscription revenue, and little negative effect in terms of new reader recruitment. We'll need to wait till he does it to see whether or not he's right.

It's also possible that a business case exists for some non-subscription titles deindexing. If more of your traffic is coming through the front door, maybe that makes people more likely to stick around and browse, and that readership is going to be worth a lot more to you than single clicks from Google News. Clicks, reads and shoots, as you might say.

But that's not a theory I'd currently care to test myself...

[Neil Stansbury]

No surprise really...

[...]Microsoft has firmly ruled out the notion of paying news publishers to de-index their content from Google[...]

.... because if Google retaliated in kind, Bing would be.. well.. Bingless

Murdoch News Corp has the stench of a crack addict desperately trying to get one last fix before their business model goes down the pan and will blame it on anyone except themselves.

[amanfromMars 1]

There's quite a lot at stake ..... and a lot of faces to save

"deals that "wouldn't necessarily require News Corp. or other publishers to shun Google"."

Hmmm. If they had any Great Deal of Sense in the Board Room, they would surely Milk and Mine Google for All of ITs Information as a Collective Remote Source Stream for IntelAIgent Options and CyberIntelAIgent Derivatives in Power of Controls and Virtual AIMachinery.

A Wily Fox Slinky Bat Cat Type Move in Media Mania Enterprises with Surprise Entries from Leading Ghosted, Co-Hosted Tales .... Alternate Realities.

Create Worlds you Desire with Media Delivers Heavens as Easily as Hell ..... and thus would the Accusation against the Present Production be Unfit for Future Purpose.

[Plug in the New Program NeuReal Virtual Memory Sticks, would be a Simple Good Plan for AIStarters in XSStarStream.

Crikey, that could also be a CERN Catastrophic Cascade Collapse System for Establishment UpGrades and MakeOvers and TakeOvers ...... Optional Extras]

And maybe Herr Schmidt is realising that some folk just aint up to his speed and are neither enabled nor well enough equipped to progress further in News Dissemination ... Reality Viewing.

Change the View with Digital, Change Reality Virtually with Loded Intelligence Scripts ........ Manna from Heaven and the Ether?

Oh and re Google and their wanting to know all, to index for access to all, and to generate wealth on what they know of what you know and is known, one has no idea what future information will deliver, unless one is directly and actively engaged and warranted to deliver.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting point

However, Google strength is also in _NOT_ sharing the data.

If Microsoft decides to share the data they have on you they will meet a barrage of legislative flak in EU compared to which the fines for Media player are kindergarden lunch money.

First of all, they have _MORE_ data than Google. They also have your Windows license and local information on what you do on your machine. In many cases they also have your financial information, work affiliation, detailed information on your hardware, list of installed software and a whole raft of other data which will make the hair on the neck of even the most privacy careless person stand up.

They are presently safe by not giving it to advertisers and marketeers on a personal basis. I do not see them relinguishing this safety regardless of what will News Corp try to tempt them with. If they do they are going to get slaughtered.

[Oninoshiko]

maybe....

They have YOUR information, but I don't have a windows license, they have no idea what I do or don't do on my machine, nor any of the software I have installed.

There is a company machine I use rdesktop to access, but that really has vary limited information about me.

Google on the other hand can trivially track most of my movements, because they serve ads and do anaylitics for large swaths of the internet. (TOR is a cute idea, but really, it's just too slow) Actually, I'm can believe I'm going to say this, but I trust google far more then my ISP (mostly because they are blatently doing DPI and calling it a "service")

Mine says "OpenSolaris" on it, thanks.

[Joe Montana]

Value...

First...

"A couple of meta tags on a web page will stop Google from indexing a site. So why don't newspapers do so?"

Why? because that would hurt the site owner far more than it hurts google, they may threaten to do it but they won't carry it out for that reason.

As for making bing traffic more valuable than that from google, they're going the wrong way about it... currently bing runs promotions that effectively pay you for using it if you follow a bing result/ad and then purchase particular items... Everyone i know who uses this feature, uses google as their primary search engine and only ever touch bing to get a discount like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

XBox and Sky Movies

This would be the same Microsoft and the same News International who are plugging watching Sky Movies on your Xbox like its the best thing since sliced bread? But of course they're not doing anything together, oh no, not them, nope, not one single grain of truth in it.

[Marvin the Martian]

Bing?

Wasn't that the surname of the more annoying of the guys in Friends? Otherwise, the name (or.. verb? noun?) doesn't ring a bell.

[Martin 6]

surely not

[Microsoft has firmly ruled out the notion of paying news publishers to de-index their content from Google]

Because paying people not to use competing products might just be taken as anti-competitive. But if Murdoch decided to block Google anyway and went to Bing, and MSFT were to place a large amount of advertising with News corp - that would be perfectly ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon people?

MS isn't really the big evil empire. Nor is it the borg that seeks to clone all unto itself.

Truth be known it is probably more committed to diversity and competition that I'd guess 99.99% of people realise confirming to boot too that 99.99% of statistics are made up on the spot without valid data.

Nah then ...

What we have here is a cusp type situation (in its mathematical/physical sense - we'll deal with the emotional part later?

There are several huge organisations with incredible turnover, influence, research and resilience and they are looking for a viable, doable, attractive and meaningful business model.

Once that has been assessed and identified in though it will probably translate out to working methods in deeds.

So how do mash-ups tie in with public demand and how fickle is/are public locally, nationally even and/or/exclusive or worldwide?

I bleev that most reader will have little or negligible appreciation of the importance of the debate El Reg is privileged to host?

[The First Dave]

Borg

Forgive me, but was the Borg comment aimed at MS or Google? The latter may not be as far advanced as MS, but are having done far more assimilation of late.

[John Lettice]

Re: MS kills 'Bing buys the news' furore, but Google could still lose it

You're right, but I don't think it just for the Google Brothers to be allowed to just walk up and steal Microsoft's nickname as well as its lunch.

We're just going to have to find another one for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft probably is talking with Murdoch - about Dallas

Microsoft talked about project 'Dallas' at their Professional Developers Conference (PDC) a couple of weeks ago. This project is slated to be included as part of Microsoft's cloud infrastructure called Azure. Dallas intends to allow application developers to present data/news that would otherwise be private - for a price. The Associated Press CTO confirmed their information is accessible when using Dallas.

No doubt Microsoft is talking to Murdoch about having various feeds from areas within his information empire for Dallas as Microsoft is touting Dallas as a 'killer app for the cloud' . If/when Dallas becomes established it is conceivable that Murdoch businesses may choose to de-list from Google.

Now put these pieces together in a different order:

Microsoft talks to Murdoch about information feeds who could then de-list from Google

and you have the bones of the original story (which is much better for sales than the more mundane potential alternative presented here).