Comments on: Murdoch-Microsoft deal in the works

By: Eric Ragle

Eric Ragle — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It won’t work. There will always be a free alternative. If anything, this will only make newsblogs like HuffPo more popular than ever.

By: DemiGuru

DemiGuru — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Oddly enough somehow I am not surprised. They deserve one another.

By: Cog

Cog — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Huh.

Interesting that the people who mock Murdoch over this move are doing so with an increasingly shrill tone.

Fearful, almost.

By: jessemoya

jessemoya — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Now when it fails miserably it’ll make it twice as sweet!

By: gths

gths — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wow someone’s getting paid a lot to edit the “robots.txt” files. You’re about five years too late, Rupe.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fearful, almost.

You don’t think that it’s frightening that a right-wing business man is attempting to turn all media in the English-speaking world into a propaganda organ for his hate-filled agenda?

By: bklynchris

bklynchris — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

How does one go about taking the “gold’ out of a setting sun’s rays?

OK bad metaphor aside, just how does a something as huge as a bunch of online news sources just disappear? And, what does it ultimately mean for society….let alone add revenues?

Weird.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Totally agree, they deserve each other. Evil twins. This is just wrong on so many levels. I can remember when the ruffians from Redmond would walk into software stores and threaten to pull all of their titles if competitive products were given premium space or attention. I’ve been struggling with a decision: iMac or Win 7 touchscreen all-in-one. I was leaning toward the PC box, but now I’m leaning strongly the other way.

By: Aidan Thornton

Aidan Thornton — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Eric Ragle: that’s why the news industry wants copyright law changed so that bloggers can’t write about stories they hear in the news unless they pay the news organisations money. (I’m not joking.)

caitifty: not the BBC, or at least not for much longer. Murdoch wants the BBC to die, and it looks like when the Conservative party take power they’ll be more than happy to oblige him. (It would seem that here in the UK, you can vote for whichever party you like, but Rupert Murdoch will still be in power either way.)

Xeno: blogs linking to Murdoch’s news sites? How dare they!

By: Robbo

Robbo — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

One dinosaur dragging another dinosaur down into teh tarry goo. So apropos. Just never thought it would happen with such a disgusting reach-around and mutual blow job – metaphorically speaking of course. Still – all too happy to stand on the shore and wave “bye-bye” to the beasts.

By: yish

yish — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Murdoch-Balmer, the axis of stupid.

By: W. James Au

W. James Au — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Actually, Murdoch’s strategy is starting to make sense, unfortunately. Microsoft’s Bing has not even been on the market for a year, and it already has 10% of the search engine market:

< http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iFIa_CCCc6QwmkYkicyfMLE_oGiQ>

If Bing gets exclusive Newscorp listings and content (not just FOX News, but Wall Street Journal, Fox TV, HarperCollins, 20th Century Fox, etc. etc.) that share will increase even more. And if Murdoch gets a few other big media players to go along with him and de-link from Google and join with Bing, that share will grow still more.

By: Cog

Cog — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, stop it. This isn’t about Murdoch’s political leanings. This is about technology.

Your rhetoric is nearing dog-whistle pitch — “all media in the English-speaking world,” “propaganda organ” — but I’ll do my best to meet you halfway: What’s really frightening, here, is the future of a democracy in which the press dies thanks to Google’s electronic free-loading.

Ever spent much time in a country without a strong press? If so, I’m sure you know where the real threat lies.

By: jfrancis

jfrancis — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’s going to be like Conservapedia vs Wikipedia for search engines, only with Conservapedia having serious money behind it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

but Wikipedia has a whole bunch of passionate people willing to working for free, that no amount of money can ever buy!!

By: John Napsterista

John Napsterista — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recognition of robots.txt is purely voluntary, just like x-no-archive was. If the MSFT/Murdoch plan is to succeed, it’s going to have to rely on something a lot more substantial than an advisory protocol, i.e. a statute or case law which says anyone who wants to prevent someone from linking to their online content can just say so, and that’s that. Such laws/legislation don’t exist, at least not in the U.S. So MSFT/Murdoch are going to try and craft them, along with a ton of other big content providers.

Hold on to yr hats, this is going to be a hugely important fight.

By: dbx

dbx — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think this is setting a bad precedent for Bing. If I were a major online content provider (eg. CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia), I would remove my content from Bing until they paid me, too. Microsoft obviously has deep pockets and Bing just doesn’t send that much traffic to me; the negative consequence of losing Bing users is far outweighed by the potential revenue. Bing might want me to sign an exclusive deal, but I would be willing to accept less money in return for a non-exclusive deal.

By: dragonfrog

dragonfrog — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for pointing out conservapedia, jfrancis – I’d never seen it before. That was good for a laugh.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Your rhetoric is nearing dog-whistle pitch

You are a master of irony.

By: gollux

gollux — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A ray of darkness carrying with it mandatory plugins, proprietary codecs, and ActiveX controls that all fight with each other and render your computer use worthless, or worse, trick you into adware/malware installs. We’ve all been there before when it was free and it stank to high heaven.

Ballmina obviously can’t make the Bing Pig fly as well as he’d wished, so he’s willing to let Murdocula suck on Microsoft’s neck in a Corporate Wealth Redistribution Plan to buy his empire time at Microsoft’s expense.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Looks like we’re heading towards Microsoft’s Internet vs everyone else’s Internet. I already know which one I’ll look at.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This heralds a balkanization of the collective human consciousness that could result in complete, collective schzophrenia.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bing isn’t new. Its just a new name, and a pretty picture background.

By: VagabondAstronomer

VagabondAstronomer — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hmmm.
Can’t help but think that Ballmer’s head is shown to proportion, and that Moloch… I mean Murdoch is looking more like Palpatine every day.
Also, as for Bing’s 10%; the default search engine for every Internet Explorer version from 6 up is now Bing. If you ask me, I’d say it is purely coincidence.

By: Cog

Cog — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

And substance, apparently.

This isn’t an arm-wrestling match. It’s a conversation about technology.

By: vicx

vicx — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Obviously its heading towards a “don’t be evil” vs “evil(tm)(c)” future.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

dbx has it right. I’m surprised the article didn’t mention this other side to the sword.

And while Murdoch has plenty of non-Conservative Media, I wonder if Microsoft understands the implications of the Partisan baggage that will go along with their news. I await the first “Hi, I’m a Mac, and I’m Glenn Beck! Obama’s a terrorist!” ad.

By: Blue

Blue — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Awesome photo, benher?

Until you imagine Ballmer is holding apart his giant ham-sized butt-cheeks.

By: justin

justin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is fantastic! Two giants killing each other. Now if only we could get Microsoft to pay Experts Exchange to do the same.

By: gollux

gollux — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Conservapedia “ain’t ingorance grand” is a cockeyed view on the world, an alternative universe of weirdness that displays as much cant as a couple of the english version pro-Islam anti-US websites I’ve viewed.