Is Microsoft trying to buy the news?
source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/22/bing-tries-to-buy-the-news/
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- richjm
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Picture the scene: you're Microsoft, you've created your own search engine but annoyingly one of your biggest rivals (Google) has already got one that seems to go down well with people. How do you bring people over to your product when they're by and large happy with what they've got?
Well, keeping in mind the phrase "the enemy of my enemy is a friend", you could always team up with News International, who want Google to remove their massively successful news brands from showing Google search results, and pay them money to ensure anyone who wants to see news results from NI giants like The Sun, Sky News and Wall Street Journal has to use Bing.
According to Techcrunch, that's Bing's plan. As TC point out though, Bing would probably have to pay insanely large amounts of money to make it a worthwhile proposition for the news companies. After all, Bing won't be able to send as many readers to news sites as Google can.
News International will definitely be interested in exploring ideas like these though. The Murdochs have publicly said they want Google to stop showing their sites in search results but it's a relatively simple procedure for News International techies to block the search giant from finding them. The real issue is the fact that Rupert Murdoch thinks news aggregators like Google News take revenue away from his companies.
Techcrunch sum up their feelings on Microsoft's rumoured plans ominously:
"Exclusive indexing goes against the Web’s inherent openness. Companies that try to curtail that openness don’t last long on the Web."
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/22/bing-tries-to-buy-the-news/
Well, keeping in mind the phrase "the enemy of my enemy is a friend", you could always team up with News International, who want Google to remove their massively successful news brands from showing Google search results, and pay them money to ensure anyone who wants to see news results from NI giants like The Sun, Sky News and Wall Street Journal has to use Bing.
According to Techcrunch, that's Bing's plan. As TC point out though, Bing would probably have to pay insanely large amounts of money to make it a worthwhile proposition for the news companies. After all, Bing won't be able to send as many readers to news sites as Google can.
News International will definitely be interested in exploring ideas like these though. The Murdochs have publicly said they want Google to stop showing their sites in search results but it's a relatively simple procedure for News International techies to block the search giant from finding them. The real issue is the fact that Rupert Murdoch thinks news aggregators like Google News take revenue away from his companies.
Techcrunch sum up their feelings on Microsoft's rumoured plans ominously:
"Exclusive indexing goes against the Web’s inherent openness. Companies that try to curtail that openness don’t last long on the Web."
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/22/bing-tries-to-buy-the-news/
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