Before I drop the link-bomb on you, my thoughts about Murdoch and paywalls/Bing.

I’m cheering Murdoch on all the way. There has been too much talk on paywalls and not enough action. We all know the reason why there has been no action – because it could prove disastrous. But that’s exactly why somebody has to suck it up and dive in first. If it turns out the water is boiling, we will all hear the screams. For being the first one to take the dive, I applaud Murdoch (you won’t hear that often). Do I think it will work, however, is another thread entirely. The short answer: It might (MIGHT probably won’t) work for a WSJ, NYT, WaPo and maybe an LAT. Any natioanlly branded newspaper. And that is a BIG “might.” For metro papers like the Boston Globe, SF Chronicle, Baltimore Sun, it would be a death plunge.

LINK BOMB

Price Tag for WSJ.com in Microsoft-Murdoch Deal Could be $8 Million Annually
…but none I know of have come up with what I’d consider a realistic figure of how much Bing might have to provide News Corp. to make up for lost revenue for any given property, and under what conditions the deal might make sense, at least as a financially-based business decision, for News Corp.

Media Nation: What a Bing News deal might mean for journalism
But imagine, if you will, an alternative universe in which newspaper sites were rolling in advertising revenues from readers Google sent their way, but in which Google itself couldn’t find a way to make any money. (Such a scenario requires you to believe a number of ridiculous things, but never mind.) Can you imagine what the debate would be? You’d hear demands that cash-fattened newspaper owners share some of their newly gotten wealth with Google.

Jason Calacanis on How To Kill Google

Jason Calacanis shares how Microsoft Bing can kill Google by partnering with news organizations such as the New York Times.

Public backs News Corp/Microsoft deal – Editors Weblog

In a public poll conducted by One News Page, 89% of respondents said that the proposed News Corp partnership with Microsoft’s Bing search engine for exclusive news access was a good idea, or ‘a winner’ in the words of the poll.

Why Big Media’s Anti-Google Counter-Revolution Will Fail – Umair Haque – HarvardBusiness.org
blogs.harvardbusiness.org
Blocking Google is about as smart as eating a pound of plutonium. Here’s why MicroFox is making a big mistake.

If Newspapers Were Stores, Would Visitors Be “Worthless” Then?
As the war of words ramps up between Google and some news publishers, the latest spin seems to be how “worthless” the traffic is that Google sends. In reality, the traffic probably does have value, but the newspapers are likely doing a terrible job of monetizing it.

Worthless readers
One response publishers make to my argument that Google drives value to them and their content in the link economy is that the readers Google sends are worthless. Boss Jarvis gives six ideas on how publishers can make their readers full of worth

Search Engine including Mobile Market Share
Let’s keep things in perspective for the moment. The chart speaks for itself.

Why a Deal With News Corp Would Make Bing the Trader Joe’s of Search
OK, so let’s say this deal comes together–which I really doubt–but let’s say it does. What will happen? I, and many others, will know that in order to read an article on the Wall Street Journal, we have to go to Bing.com and not Google. We conduct our search, read the article, then decide to keep Bing as our default search engine…go right back to using Google!

Microsoft, Don’t You Dare
From myself, and the rest of the internet community: Microsoft, you must not do this. Doing so would set a precedent that content should charge search engines for the right to be spidered. What you are doing is just that, attempting to buy exclusive rights to News Corp online. This is the proverbial slippery slope.

News Corp. Weighs an Exclusive Alliance With Bing
The New York Times
If such an arrangement came to pass, it would be a watershed moment in the history of the Internet, and set off a fierce debate over the future of content online.

Microsoft and News Corp. are pursuing yesterday’s solution to today’s challenges
ojr.org
News Corp.’s alleged plan to shield its online content from Google’s search engine in favor of having it indexed by Microsoft’s Bing is a brilliant content business strategy… for the 20th Century.

Rupert, The Grinch and Google – Recovering Journalist

Then he got an idea! An awful idea!

The Grinch got a wonderful, awful idea!

“I know just what to do!” The Grinch laughed in his throat.

And he thought of old Microsoft, and disruptions to float.

And he chuckled, and clucked, “What a great Grinchy thing!

For a Google disaster, I’ll hook up with Bing!