Whenever Rupert Murdoch goes back to his home country of Australia, he loosens up and says things to the press (usually his own outlets) that he might not say in the U.S. Of course, everyone in the U.S. picks up on it and it becomes a big story, as it did today after Murdoch told his own Sky News that he might start blocking Google and other search engines from giving searchers full access to articles on the Wall Street Journal’s website, WSJ.com. Asked whether he realized that Google was sending his news site a ton of traffic, Murdoch responded, “”We’d rather have fewer people coming to our Websites, but paying.”
If Murdoch wants fewer people coming to the WSJ.com and other news sites he controls, blocking Google from indexing those sites is the perfect way to achieve that goal. Just over 25 percent of the WSJ.com’s traffic comes directly from Google or Google news, according to estimates by Hitwise. About 12 percent of that comes from Google News, and another 15 percent from Google search directly.
About 44 percent of visitors to the WSJ.com are new to the site, so Google is doing a good job of introducing new readers to the WSJ. But Murdoch clearly would rather have loyal readers than those delivered by search engines. Or at least that is his story, and he is sticking to it. Never mind that in order to get people to pay for content, they first have to be able to find it.
Meanwhile, the WSJ.com still has a deal with Google which allows the search engine to bypass the paywall and show readers the full text of articles when they click through. Perhaps the WSJ is learning that there it can’t be half-pregnant. Either you charge everyone for content, or you make it free, because if there is back door everyone will find it. All the strange arrangement with Google is doing is training people to search on Google News for stories on the WSJ, rather than go directly to the WSJ. But I digress.
Here is the full video interview with Murdoch below:
Good Ol Rupert is a yank now. He gave up his right to call himself an Aussie years ago when he changed his nationality so he could make even more money.
Nevertheless, the idea of charging for new content online is ridiculous – readers will simply find another news source.
What would be much more interesting would be article that analysed his assertions. I for one am no Murdoch fan but worry greatly about news/journalism that is driven by a page click/advertising model.
Great strategy by Murdoch. Good, quality journalism doesn’t come cheap, and banner ad impressions alone aren’t enough to cover the overhead that goes into producing the type of material that WSJ and other properties publish. I personally wouldn’t mind paying a nominal fee in order to preserve a certain standard of delivering news.
Much like Chris said, readers will just find another source. There is so much information available on the internet for free that WSJ will get less and less paid users with the way social media is evolving and taking over mainstream media.
A standard that none of Murdoch’s holdings live up to.
But why would you bother when you can get it from hundreds of other news sites without paying a penny?
Here is the problem with quality journalism…two words… FOX NEWS?
Rupert is just trying to position himself for myspace negotiations…but he has NO leverage.
Good for WSJ.. Blocking their content from Google will help them in dying sooner than later….
Why everyone not including the most common search engine uses – for research! How often are we searching for breaking news, instead of just going straight to our favorite site (NY Times, CNN, etc.) and reading news story there.
For original stories, have them give us synopsis and setup pay wall, whatev…
This is ridiculous and if he decides to block Google WSJ will definitely lose a large portion of readership. What is he thinking?
he’s thinking he wans a better deal when the negotiations start. he’s already going to the public/press pre negotiations because he’s trying to pave a way to his plans. i hope google is too smart for his bs.
seriously. why would i go to the wsj or any other rupert murdoch owned product when i can get what i want/need elsewhere. what a old geezer dipshit rich guy. ugh.
U guys simply don’t understand that there is a certain type of content that isn’t available in “hundreds of other news sites, without paying a penny”
Most ppl thought the same about Creative Commons content, but there’s very good music, very good art, very good content out there which is available “without paying a penny”.
It’s been nice knowing you WSJ
I think the 25% estimate of traffic is probably grossly underestimated. Most sites don’t like to admit it but it is common for 75% + of traffic for a site to come from google.
That was 2008. 2009 is a whole different ball game. Referring sites rules.
The man is certainly in the best spot to know how the numbers add up. Its just a matter of subscription revenue vs. ad revenue.
this is ridiculous. Google sends WSJ traffic, the same way they send web pages traffic. Who doesn’t want traffic. Google does not present WSJ content, just titles. duh.
Google News takes the odd image and first line of text too, usually. I think he’s basically not happy that Google make money out of indexing the web (and NC parts of it) with their adwords.
scott youre an idiot, do you know what google news is? this whole thing revolves around news.
Looks like he does email marketing, so probably not.
I call BS. There’s no way he will go through with it. It doesn’t make sense.
His stance is that he doesn’t need traffic in order to get revenue and will just be able to make it from premium memberships. But when you’re offering very little (if any?) unique content why would anyone pay money for it? It’s going to be freely available on the web from other sources anyway.
Traffic = $$$ and if you’re going to lock out a large majority of your users and tank your traffic, advertisers are going to go elsewhere to follow the traffic.
B.S.
really. yeah he’s a big talker but he’s also a doer and he’s tryign to gain some sort of footing.
anyways i don’t agree with him and i hope he comes through with what he’s saying because i would like to see nothing more than him lose money.
Sounds like Rupert’s going kamikaze on us. If WSJ blocked Google, it wouldn’t lead me to paying for WSJ content.
It would lead me to stop reading WSJ.
Why don’t they come up with some kind of premium level offering while keeping the news portion of it free to find online. I don’t get it.
The thing is, if you actually stopped reading WSJ, would they lose any revenue? If I stopped reading it they certainly wouldn’t, I don’t recall a single occasion in which I’ve clicked through on that site.
The WSJ already has premium content, their usual content. It’s generally to a level that most other news sources don’t match. Having more readers doesn’t actually benefit them if it brings no revenue, if anything it probably hurts them as they’re less likely to go buy the newspaper itself. And remember, it’s the only one of the top 25 newspapers in the US not to drop in circulation in the past year – http://www.reut...633378520091026 – it’s now also the biggest selling one nationally.
Most websites live off impressions = income, but I can see why the WSJ wouldn’t. The problem exists that the WSJ isn’t in it’s own little ecosystem, News Corp owns a whole lot of other content they Murdoch probably wants references from Google.
Anything he touches turns to dust. The bad kind that’s in your basement, not pixie dust.
Yeah, thats how he became a billionaire… By ruining businesses… Like his number one cable news network (US) foxnews… His popular Skynews network… that junk news paper WSJ… that unpopular new york post… That unimportant Dow Jones… Not to mention MySpace, foxsports, hulu, ect..
Yeah he screwed up to a tune of $32 billion a year in revenue….
http://en.wikip...s_corp#Holdings
Why don’t you a) realize he is negotiating and b) that he understands the market slightly better than us nobodies on the internet…
@Stu: I do agree with yout points made. Rupert has been used to rule the news world and is now trying to get a stance in the Google powered advertising world.
Good content is worth paying for, e.g. I do like reading magazines about my favorite topics as I appreciate the insights of journalists and experts. Yes, we do find a lot of content online, but that is as well part of the problem: It takes sometimes to long to find the right and trustworthy sort.
But THAT is his point. He doesn’t care about that portion of traffic. He’s just interesting in the paying ones. Or, perhaps he sees a growing increase of traffic coming for referral sites.
Google should just block them all. Including Myspace.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Google acted first. Then it would be: “Ok, you don’t want our traffic? Then here ya go…..” “Viola, no traffic as of, BZZZZT, now….” Nothing I know of says Google has to direct traffic anywhere….. Especially a place where one is not wanted.
lol that would be good.. or direct it to a competitor.
I don’t think that would work. If WSJ became a closed system, their exclusive articles and stuff would be off limits to non-WSJ sources. Google can redirect traffic all it wants to WSJ competitor sites…but none of it will really be the same content that is on WSJ. At its best, the info found elsewhere will constantly be citing the original info on WSJ and eventually truly dedicated financial readers will be like, “This is stupid, most of the financial stuff I want is from WSJ anyways…I might as well get a subscription to the site.”
Plus, remember that any video content they create will stay within the WSJ system as well and other news outlets and stuff won’t be able to use it w/o permission.
Google can’t do that….then Rupert will cry censorship…DOJ will be after Google.
I know his plan SOUNDS crazy…but if you think about it, his WSJ brand does have something most news websites don’t have: real value from an actual, dedicated readership base. I mean, correct me if I’m mistaken…but hasn’t the WSJ been one of the handful of print pubs (newspaper AND magazines) that has been posting profits/growth numbers for the past few years while everyone else’s is shrinking considerably?
I mean, you have to keep in mind the TYPE of reader WSJ has too. They aren’t pimple-faced teenagers, nor are they casual financial readers…they are mostly financial experts and professionals who has little problem spending tons on a single source of news that is updated with exclusive content on a daily basis. I bet those same deep pocket readers would have no problem dishing out $50 a month for web access to its content (especially if there was new content on the WSJ site).
Plus, if this works out, all that will do is tell more publishing companies that is IS possible to make money online and cut out the middle man (like Google), provided the brand is strong enough and price is right. Maybe that would mean one day websites would have UNIQUE content to talk about instead of just being a bunch of blogs spewing the same content from slightly different angles.
Sure, the WSJ is similar to the Financial Times in the UK which also does well as a subscription service for professionals.
When he starts blocking all NC sites from Google, that will be big news.
A good point. From my point of view, and from yours it appears, the WSJ seems to have a good reputation for telling it like it is instead of other Main Stream Media sites whose main purpose in life is to slant the news. They also have a limited perspective. Business news versus all other kinds. A very respected institution.
The point is that whoever is advising Murdoch, they would seem to be in a bind. Advise decoupling and getting crucified if it turns sour or maintaining status quo and then have staff wondering if they had bet wrong.
I’m of a mind to say that one size does not fit all in this situation. It still would be interesting and completely unexpected if Google acted first. I really don’t expect it however.
Right Scott. TC is full of technology minded readers who think technology first and content second. WSJ is a global brand that has access and creates vital content to many people who use it to make serious money. So a lot of the folks here who think it needs to bow down before the Google need to get a life.
The newspaper costs me 50 cents and has a “finance” and “politics” section but I’ll also pay $5 for the Economist. So the “I can just find the information somewhere else for free” argument isn’t that well thought through.
I think you’ll end up with two worlds within 5 years. The New York Times, WSJ etc will be $5 per month apps on your iPhone/Device and the rest will be free and ad driven. The global reach of the Internet will mean that the NYT and WSJ will have a huge body of subscribers to get these fees from. Those predictable revenue streams will mean better quality reporting free from being advertising driven headlines.
Right now we’re getting this high quality reporting FREE because it’s still subsidized by the old revenue models that are dying. So change is coming and folks will realize then how valuable this content really is when what’s left is a second tier of reporters reliant on page views for revenue.
I find it ironic that his interview is posted on YouTube (a Google product).
You would think that a Newspaper person would understand that most of a newspaper’s revenue comes from the advertisements, not the subscriptions. I find it hard to believe that the revenue paradigm be different for online news
I somehow manage to find Techcrunch every day without Google holding my hand.
Personally I’m happy to pay for quality content on a medium that I choose… whether that be a newspaper, on tv, mobile or on my laptop.
@chriskettle
exactly, people fail to realize google isnt necessary
It isn’t necessary, but it sure as hell helps.
The Wall Street Journal is in a position where it probably doesn’t need Google *that* much. However, the rest of news corporation is not.
If Murdoch were to attempt to block Google from indexing WSJ.com content Google could easily respond-in-kind by blocking All News Corp content.
If the WSJ were independent, it could ‘go to war’ with Google, sure. But as part of a major corporation, Murdoch would lose far more.
+5
that’s great that you use the address bar or have indexed tc on yyour browser. i happen to rarely use my address bar or any other search engine and i usually just head to google, type in where i’m going and then click on the site. i don’t read the wsj. i am not a wsj reader, but if i was going to that wbesite i would do it through google, or google news.
http://thurly.net//7w9 — According to this post by the Washington Times, WSJ saw growth of just 0.6%. That’s not something I’d be jumping about, even if if is one of only two papers to have over 100,000 subscribers.
I wonder what the data is on WSJ subscribers. How old are they? What are their income brackets? I imagine those factors could come in to play.
The guy is stuck on stupid if you ask me. I think he may be still be living in “tangible newspaper land” also known as the year 1995.
Now that was funny! And perfectly to the point, too. More comments should be like yours.
Newspapers are still tangible, it’s the content that has to change. Of course it isn’t worth it to pay for some headline news announcing, “Michael Jackson died!”. You can always find it elsewhere.
But there’s a big difference between real-time headline news and good, critical news analysis. I’m not going to pay for the former, but I’ll certainly pay for some quality writing to anyone who can provide it for me.
But you are also living in Google land, which was 2008. 2010 will be very different. Search, ain’t king any more; prime minister maybe, but not king.
right. you have all the crystal balls right. make sure none of them shatter.
Its not like you can view the whole story on wsj anyways
News.com.au would lose 25% of their total traffic: http://twitpic.com/out9o
Ouch!
All I can say is his douchery still manages to astound. Kinda like Mark Cuban.
hahahaaa. that is so true. you and the tangible comment guy get best funny comment of the thread.
It’s the old 20-80 Rule (has other names).
20% of your customers account for 80% of your revenue.
Focus on those *paying* 20% (and fuck the rest over).
I respect Murdoch a lot. But did he honestly suggest that fair use of news articles online could be defeated in court??? Wow. I hope that’s not what he meant. If so, his confidence is misplaced.
It always seems that he uses the press as an stress relief outlet, if u ask me he should just sign up to http://www.ventnation.com and vent there… even if he has to do it anonymously!!..lol
It would make perfect sense for Murdoch to cut off the full article preview deal, or take more free content to the paid side, but eliminating results from Google completely would just be stupid. It would be more beneficial to tease potential readers with preview-only version than to eliminate that traffic.
And the WSJ is one of the few publications that can survive on a paid subscription model, and has even increased subscriptions while raising rates (cited from a case study published by their marketing agency a few months back, can’t find it now though).
WSJ content has been declining they were know for investigative articles, now all they have is headlines; the Times is doing a better job
rel=”nofollow” to all NewsCorp web holdings.
Murdoch obviously doesn’t understand how online news publication works. Google should teach him a lesson and show him what it’s like to be removed from their index =)
Whaddaya gonna do to survive if you’re in the newspaper business? What will society do without professional journalists and investigators?
Unresolved.
“What he’s hoping is that a second-tier search engine like Bing or Ask (or, better yet, some search tool you’ve never heard of that just got $50MM in venture capital) will give him half a year’s operating budget in exchange for a competitive advantage over Google.” – boingboing
oh, don’t be silly. Murdoch will just send over more teenagers from MySpace
You online fanboys are too buried in your code. The information technology business has no business without information! The technology is relatively cheap to reproduce. The content, not so much. Th era of free is ending. The one thing Rupert nailed on the head is that there isn’t enough advertising to support the free model. This is why the vast majority of free services (sans Google) are not profitable. The days of free riding on the backs of the content producers is numbered.
Everyone assumes that traffic from Google equals lots of $$$$. It’s really not worth that much — especially to WSJ advertisers.
Murdoch knows how much the traffic is worth and he can run the numbers and figure out if subscriptions would more than makeup for lost traffic income.
Also, search engine traffic is low quality it is stumbled upon. You want to build traffic that knows where you live.
i think we should encourage and dare him to do it, as it would make for an awesome case study and put this non-debate to rest once and for all.
so who’s w/me…”come on murdoch, make my day”
It is an easy calculation: if a pay wall reduces “free” readers and if you can add some data about your subscribers to profiles you can charge much higher CPMs.
Even if your traffic drops 50 % you can still earn more through Advertising if you increase your rates accordingly.
This won’t work for junk sites (low profile entertainment), but it works for business sites.
The payment process must be very easy for subscribers, something like TV Everywhere / easy autentication.
People who don’t want to pay for information and added value (services, high profile community etc.) should go to Facebook and throw sheeps at each other or take part in pirate “competitions”.
Murdoch’s right. Engagement is a more important measure than reach.
To be fair, how much of that traffic from Google is for ‘brand terms’? – terms such as ‘WSJ’, ‘Wall Street Journal’ and ‘WSJ.com’.
ie people who are just too lazy to type a URL into Google (which is most people these days)
I’d guess at least half.
All they have to do is have the homepage indexed by Google to rank for those terms, and then hide the rest of the content and people looking for the brand will still find it.
It’s the 44% of new visitors he doesn’t think he wants – they come in, don’t click ads, don’t pay, and leave.
But a percentage of them stick around – it’s new business, new audience.
http://www.abc....diawatch/video/
“building the pay wall”
this man is the devil!
what about his comment regarding the abolishment of fair use in that interview, this 78 year old man wants to subsidize and destroy the internet, besides all his news outlets are shit!
I’m actually fascinated what those search terms may be..
“dear google,
please tell me what good shares to buy?”
surely the big G just make it easier to type what we want in their nice little box than type the full url in the big box.
Taking yourself off Google is the equivalent to taking yourself off the rack at the news stand. Not gong to happen, even of some people read the whole thing standing in front of it. It’s the price you pay to stay in the public eye. Sounds like drunk talk.
BTW, I’m drunk. Apologies for the typos above.
Funniest news stand ever. Give away everything in the hope that some kind souls will throw a few bucks your way. That seems to be working so well for all the other money-losing newspapers.
After reading the latest stories on the topic, which is now a few days later, and now that I’ve sobered up. This can work if enough big media companies boycott Google and for that to happen it will probably require that Bing pay them to compensate for lost Google traffic. If Google ends up with a big hole in its SERPs, then they will lose market share fast.
I really like the idea myself, because Google has been sucking most of the dollars out of internet content for years now.
If it’s practically impossible to opt out of Google, even if the alternative is near-bankruptcy, Google is too powerful.
Google should eliminate first-click-free. It’s good for consumers and certainly good for Google but unfair to content producers. It’s sort of kind of a little bit evil…
Umm, he can enable subscription-only access to his content without blocking Google explicitly, and he can block Google without enabling subscription only-access. Either way Google is not really relevant to the decision being made.
You either offer free access to the content and let it be picked by everyone (including Google), or you offer paid access to the content and lose everyone who don’t want to pay. Make up your mind already, and stop criticizing Google for doing their job.
Ultimately, if your journalist product is really worth the money you ask for it, people will buy it. If not, the market will kill you. But it won’t be Google’s fault.
If any publication can actually pull this off, its WSJ.
If you are a hedge fund manager with a $500,000 salary, would you mind paying $20/month for access to WSJ?
I don’t think so…
Actually it is 12.95 a month and I’ve been paying that since 1994. Before that I was in the “free” beta site for the WSJ. And no I am not a hedge fund manager or even in banking. I’m an engineer and I value quality reporting. As long as they keep doing what they are doing I will continue to gladly pay.
Rupert is so right in this. Take care of subscribers and throw scraps to everyone else. I hope he even turns off commenting for non-subscribers. You see comments made at wsj.com show your real name if you subscribe and that encourages a lot more civility and discourse. As soon as they allowed the google crowd to comment everything turned into anonymous flame wars.
i think it’s only fair for google to let rupert murdoch win and change the entire ecosystem as we know it, or as we the consumers drive it (no matter what the owners want to say. if we don’t want to use what you’re hocking/selling, it’s dead). if rupert wins then he can take all the rest with him and we cheap asses who don’t want to pay for content can just get our information eslewhere. i don’t mind paying for something i like, want, need…but rupert murdoch is beyond being likeable. he’s such a shill.
How much money does that traffic generate, in terms of CPC, CPM, and conversion to paid subscriber status? How different is that audience from non-search audiences in terms of dwell time, click-through, and number of pages viewed?
You don’t know?
Then STFU. You have no idea whether blocking Google or not blocking Google makes commercial sense for the WSJ.
Uh, in case you aren’t watching, Wall Street Journal is one of the FEW newspapers that aren’t shriveling up and dying.
Now that Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal, its passed USA Today as the top selling newspaper in the US. Murdoch owned Fox News continually destroys the competition in cable news ratings, consistently beating MSNBC and CNN combined. Murdochs pay-to-view strategy with the Wall Street Journal garners 400,000 paid subscribers.
Just because TechCrunch could not possibly charge for their content, doesn’t mean there isn’t content that people will pay after tax dollars for…
The ego of some of those that write for this blog is really mind boggling.
What kind of business model doesn’t include attracting prospective customers? You can have a pay wall and STILL be indexed by google. The two are not mutually exclusive.