Citizen journalism the winner in News Ltd vs Google
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
There’s a lot to chuckle about in Gordon Farrer’s piece about how much of a threat News Ltd poses to Google.
In no particular order, they are:
- content aggregators care much about Rupert Murdoch putting content behind a paywall,
- increasing the amount of media content in controlled spaces (ie the iPad) could significantly undermine Google’s business model,
- it will become easier to stop people breaking DRM and other copy-protection measures in the future, not harder, and
- the implication that radio stations, TV channels and other internet sites don’t read newspapers and re-use the content.
They’re all worth having a laugh at for various reasons. I’m surprised a technology writer doesn’t make more about how Google structures its search algorithim. I’m also surprised a technology writer thinks the golden age of copy protection is apparently ahead of us, not behind.
But the most interesting thing in Farrer’s piece is that citizen journalists, bloggers and tweeters have more to fear from News Ltd and other old media organisations locking up content than the other way around. Farrer makes the not unreasonable comment that if traditional news content was successfully locked away, tweeters, bloggers and citizen journos would have to go elsewhere for content to ‘riff’ off. It’s a big if but even if he was right in saying it could be done successfully, it doesn’t matter. News Ltd, Fairfax and other big media outlets should be more afraid of citizen journos having reduced opportunities to riff off their content than the other way round.
People are already paying less attention to traditional media, they’re digesting less traditional media and diversifying their sources when they do. They’re paying more attention to their Twitter feeds and Facebook updates than ever before because they feel that the content is relevant and that it matters. Locking conternt up further encourages more of that, not less. News Ltd and Fairfax et al should do everything they can to encourage bloggers and tweeters to hang off their every word.
To do otherwise risks speeding up a virtuous circle that has already begun and risks leaving old media out in the cold.
