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• 1. James Pringle  |  April 8th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

  Ask yourself. What percentage of the time do you use google to find something in newspapers, versus something else on the web? If you are anything like me, a relatively small percentage of the time. If the newspapers are not on google it will not effect my usage of google, and thus there revenues.

  How do I occasionally stumble across interesting newspaper content? By finding things on google. So if the newspaper blocks google in their robots.txt file, I will never find there stuff, and they will never get the revenue I would bring them with my visit. So if they leave google, they loose.

  Making your paper an obscure backwater on the web does not seem to be a great route to success. Google enables papers much more than papers enable google.

  p.s. “steal there content” seems unnecessarily inflammatory, given that it is easy for any web site to ask google not to search it, and google respects such requests (search for robots.txt on the web…)

• 2. Joel  |  April 8th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

  Today I was told about a article in the newspaper, I went to the newspaper’s site and couldn’t find it. I went to Google News and did the same search and found it. Does he not see how Google actually helped me find a article on his own websites. The shear stupidity of these people never fails to amaze me.

• 3. Anonymous  |  April 8th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

  Google may have started out as a benign project, but it has and is growing into an evil monstrosity.

  What makes it worse is that they’ve been able to tap into the Apple cultists and thus have positioned themselves as the anti-Microsoft, while they are equally as evil. And, though you you may not believe it at this time, but there will come a time when we all wake-up and realize that the fact they draw viewers to copyrighted videos, newspaper content, books and whatnot is really just the same argument, over and over. All copyright holders, all over the world can’t all be wrong. Google is just a search engine and if we stop giving them a bye on every violation, they’ll once again just be one of many.

• 4. Joel  |  April 8th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

  “Google may have started out as a benign project, but it has and is growing into an evil monstrosity.”

  So helping people find news on the internet is evil?

• 5. invitedmedia  |  April 8th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

  with thoughts like this perhaps mr. zell should stick with real estate.

• 6. Anonymous  |  April 8th, 2007 at 4:28 pm

  If you read the AFP link - Yahoo!, MSN, AOL and others offer licensed content from media partners, while Google scarfs up anything they can find. Though, obviously, if you sue them, they will settle and properly license the content, as the article says they have done with AFP and the AP.

  Most major newspaper’s content times-out after two weeks, then it goes into archive status, available only to paid users. You may argue this model isn’t the best, but it also means that you generally aren’t discovering newspaper content with a regular Google search. Instead, if you want news content via Google, you have to go to their news site and obviously the only way they’ll do as every other search on the web; They have to be sued in order to get them to pay for a license.

• 7. Rob  |  April 8th, 2007 at 4:28 pm

  Definitions:

  Old Media - Concerned about losing revenue. Focused not on brand recognition and getting the message out to the masses but turning a buck. These are the guys who sue college students and upstart ‘new media’ companies and individuals for using the Internet to get the message to the masses and increase their brand recognition for them. See also: Major TV networks, Catstrophic extinction of the dinosaurs.

  New Media - Focused on using the power of the new medium - whatever it may be - to share the message with the masses. Focused on both sharing content and gaining revenue. Considered evil for not making it harder to get the message, regardless of the messenger, out without making the consumer endure really annoying advertising models just to get the message. See also: Napster, YouTube, Google, Ted Turner and Cable News Network launch (1980).

  No media - People who have no clue how the Internet works but have a wealth of cash and / or power and are entrenching their positions offline because new technology scares them. Will do whatever it takes to drive their business into the ground without regard for the paradigm shift that took place when the Internet went mainstream and changed their way business model whether they like it or not. See also: Sam Zell, Sen. Ted Stevens (R - Alaska).

• 8. Anonymous  |  April 8th, 2007 at 5:40 pm

  To Commenter 6: GOOGLE DOES NOT POST STORIES ON ITS SITE. IT LINKS TO STORIES. That’s what this blog entry did, it’s what everyone does, it’s what Zell wants people to do. When he says Google “steals” stories, he’s displaying his ignorance. Google links to stuff. Sheesh. Any web user worth a lick knows that. Sure, it stores a local copy on its server so it knows what’s what, but you automatically store a local copy on your computer when you visit a website, too.

• 9. Anonymous  |  April 8th, 2007 at 5:54 pm

  au contraire - Google posts the first paragraph or two of the stories and they have an inexplicably large number of photographs. If it were just headlines and links, there’d probably be no problem. Though I can’t speak for Mr Zell, but I’m sure it’s the content that has his up in arms and not just the links.

  Plus, there’s the whole issue of the Google cache, which could serve as an end-run around a newspaper’s paid archives, if the articles were to come-up in a regular search.

• 10. Steve Safran  |  April 8th, 2007 at 5:57 pm

  Wait - I’ve been out all day. How come nobody defended me and the rest of the Appple Cultists? Come on, people! Who’s got my back?

• 11. Joel  |  April 8th, 2007 at 6:21 pm

  If Google was truly evil they would block all of Sam Zell’s media assets from any Google search.

• 12. The Tony  |  April 8th, 2007 at 8:31 pm

  Tribune’s supposed to have this “renewed focus on local content” now that a new overlord has been named.

  Over the years, working for a local affiliate, I’ve learned that the word “local” really means “detached from reality, and lost in your own, self-important little universe.”

  Sounds like more closed-minded thinking from another old, rich guy.

  Anyone thinking destroying what little progress local stations have made in recent years is a good thing is an R-tard, and Apple is GOD. I

• 13. The Tony  |  April 8th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

  (continued) …

  I love Apple and use Google religiously.

  In the end, it’s all about customization, the personal experience, and whoever makes finding what I want to find easiest and quickest.

  I don’t care about Tribune’s content ownership. And I certainly don’t care about Mr. Zell’s vast fortune or his opinions if he’s going to continue down the path of the dinosaurs.

  I just want to read the article, and I’d wager plenty of users, regardless of which search engine they use to find that article, would agree. If it ain’t on Google, I won’t be finding it. I’m not used to searching this stuff out. I’m used to going to one or two places and having all that information collected FOR me.

  Or like with YouTube…I don’t care who owns the video. Maybe I SHOULD, but I DON’T, and I’m sure the average user-monkey doesn’t, either.

  I just want to watch the video and maybe upload something I find interesting for others to enjoy.

• 14. Anonymous  |  April 9th, 2007 at 1:38 am

  If the Tribune Company were to take all of their papers out of Google and if McClatchy were to do the same, there wouldn’t be much left for Google to monetize, especially if they were to also withhold all of their syndicated product which appears in smaller papers.

  As for not caring about where you get your content, please remember that the next time a Mom & Pop store goes out as a result of Walmart, or the next time an independent bookseller has to close because of competition from Amazon and the chains.

  Life may become as simple as it was in the days of Ike Godsey’s store, when we’re back to everything coming from one or two sources and just a couple of networks, but what is the true price of that convenience?

• 15. Anonymous  |  April 9th, 2007 at 1:47 am

  And, perhaps it should also be said that flashing-in to read a single article doesn’t really give the paper a lot of revenue, if any. In fact, perhaps an argument could be made that people habitually grazing a site via Google, the paper is actually losing an opportunity because there’s less reason for someone to be a regular reader of the paper or the site.

• 16. Anonymous  |  April 9th, 2007 at 1:56 am

  It’s sort of like those “Ads by Google” which have been getting bigger and moving up the sidebar of this site. Obviously, we’re not clicking the ads, statistically few people actually click them and they tend to be the less knowledgable user, something this site generally lacks.

  A newspaper gets it’s prestige from its reputation and they may be getting an increasing amount of revenue from their website, but most of them are not there, yet. For a newspaper’s online venture to be deemed a success, they need people to see it as a destination, a reputable news source and people clicking a link in Google without caring where it’s going doesn’t help toward that end. And, it can be argued that by putting a reputatable paper on the same level as every Tom, Dick and Harry’s blog, the paper’s repuation could actually be harmed.

  “Where’d you see the article?”
  “I don’t know, it was on Google”.

• 17. Tim  |  April 9th, 2007 at 4:45 am

  A “renewed focus on local content” as The Tony said, is this year’s trend in newspapers; my local is doing the same thing and it’s owned by Gannett. I believe LR has been pushing this idea for local TV stations, as well as local newspaper’s web sites. Local media outlets not only _should_ have some local focus, but they _must_ if they are to survive.

  As for Google being ‘evil’ or not - forget the emotional aspects. It boils down to three words:

  People use Google. Adapt.

  Because Google has incredible “mind share” (hey who put that Nielsen device in my brain?) they get a lot of free press for what they do, including from the Apple cultists - who, by the way, are more of a benign, Pilates-and-incense cult than a zombie-making voodoo cult.

  They also do what they do very well - the reason their search engine became so popular in the first place was because it worked so well, not because it was ‘cool’.

  As with many things in the ‘new media’ (when will we stop calling mass-market Internet, which is at least 15 years old, ‘new’?) it’s a Darwinian thing: adapt or die.

• 18. G Man  |  April 9th, 2007 at 10:00 am

  Also, how about that EVIL Craig’s List - stealing all that classified ad revenue from these badly run newspapers.

  “Adapt or die” - Darwin

• 19. Anonymous  |  April 9th, 2007 at 10:32 am

  (The lady whose house was stripped because of an anonymous Craigslist ad and the unthinking people who responded, she probably isn’t one of the service’s biggest fans)

  I guess all this is besides the point. Yes, Mr Zell may decide to sue. Personally, I wouldn’t blame him because time and time again, whenever Google has been sued, they’ve settled.

  But, what I find disappointing as a citizen is the fact that if he were to withhold his content, the readers of this blog, many of which are in the news business wouldn’t go the extra step of going to the source. Instead, they’d rather not know what’s in some of the largest newspapers in the world, either because Google didn’t fetch it or because they can’t be bothered with typing-in an url.

  Darwin wrote of improvements to a species.
  Homogenization is pretty much the opposite of his work.

• 20. john anthony  |  April 9th, 2007 at 10:39 am

  Google would still be extremely profitable b/c the value they bring is mostly due to the sophistication of their search algorithms which is something Yahoo and all other search networks have tried to duplicate unsuccessfully for years now.

• 21. invitedmedia  |  April 9th, 2007 at 10:41 am

  i read and heard all about sago from some of the biggest media companies in the world.

  the boston terrorist sign-a-thon too.

  your point?

• 22. Anonymous  |  April 9th, 2007 at 11:49 am

  Google’s “profits” are only transitory. Clearly they’re based on click-fraud and a flawed algorithm, so it’s only a matter of time until regulators get involved. There are others making the same claim, but right now, everyone’s fighting this “Google is great” mantra and their power to quash is as great as Microsoft’s. Hence, why I’ve been commenting with unsigned information. They scare the hell out of me.

• 23. Dan  |  April 9th, 2007 at 9:31 pm

  If google abuses it’s position as a great search engine,
  or is proven to have used unethical business tactics,
  people will migrate away from them. This has been
  proven over and over in business. It doesn’t happen
  overnight but it does happen. No need to worry.

  Finally, google.com is a search company.
  If I want to see all the stories about Don Imus today,
  go to news.google.com and see a selection of
  2,157 stores to choose from, all linked to the source.
  These stories are not copied into Yahoo or AOL or
  google’s own home pages, they are links to the newspapers and organizations around the world.
  If this isn’t useful to get a variety of
  sources for a story, I don’t know what is.
  If you think people are going to go to 2000 individual
  news sites and search each one for Don Imus
  stories, you are not playing with a full deck.

  Dan

• 24. G Man  |  April 10th, 2007 at 4:42 am

  The Google police (G-Men I guess - I must be one of them) are coming for you.

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