Since its early origins as the brainchild of two Stanford University students, Google has become the most visited website on the Internet, providing online search tools, e-mail, social networking, map services, video sharing and more. Google is always my first stop when I need to find an article about any given topic; the sheer volume of the search results it produces guarantees a useful website link. Indeed, Google’s mission is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful” and available in one, easy-to-use forum. Now, a major change may make that mission statement impossible to achieve.
Recently, Microsoft has been having discussions with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal and New York Post. These talks have been about potentially removing News Corp’s newspaper content from Google’s search results. Instead of using Google to access articles from these papers, news consumers would have to use Microsoft’s Bing. This search engine is not nearly as popular as Google and, as a result, Microsoft is prepared to pay companies to remove their content from Google and make it exclusively available on Bing.
Online news has become increasingly popular throughout the past few years as a result of changing demands and expectations from readers. In spite of the increased efficiencies of online news, Rupert Murdoch blames Google for the increased traffic on the Wall Street Journal website. With more than 25 percent of the Wall Street Journal’s visitors being directed from Google, Murdoch blames low sales numbers on the vast availability of online content on Google. His plan therefore puts pressure on Google to begin paying for the content it provides.
I think that this business plan is incredibly flawed and will ultimately hurt News Corp’s popularity among Americans. Very few people will take the time to switch from Google to Bing in order to access Wall Street Journal content. They are more likely to choose other, more easily available news sites, instead. This shift is also unlikely to hurt Google, since people have grown familiar with its services already. Additionally, as CNN’s Pete Cashmore explains, the word “news” does not draw the greatest number of hits, so advertisers are not likely to break off their deals with Google.
Recently, in response to News Corp and Microsoft’s discussions, Google has been downplaying the importance of online newspaper content. Google’s UK director, Matt Britain, explained that, “economically it’s not a big part of how we generate revenue.” For Google’s sake, I really hope that he’s right. Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, has not been shy about discussing his company’s dedication to building up Bing’s name. He has said that Microsoft is prepared to spend a great deal of money over a period of several years just to make Bing a major rival for Google. It will be interesting to see how this competitive agenda plays out. Personally, I will always be loyal to Google; I have never had a problem with the site and I think it is a reliable and user-friendly source. May the best search engine win!
-Sarah
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