Microsoft and Newscorp

So this is interesting.  With Murdoch making noise about dropping out of Google lately, its not surprising that the newest search engine in town might be willing to fluff up a soft landing place for him.  Looks like Microsoft is willing to pay for access to old media content.  Could Google be in trouble? 

Let’s recap.  You have old media with a business model that used to generate huge profits from content – not because the content was in high demand by the readers – but because they had a lock on a very effective (if very expensive) distribution system.  Old media used the system to advertise, as well as distribute content.  All was well for about 100 years.

Then the Internets arrived.  Now anyone can write and publish content that reaches a potentially huge audience for pennies.  How to advertise using that next generation system?  Enter Google.

This leaves Newscorp et. al. with a very expensive alternative that nobody wants to pay for.  See CraigsList vs. the classified section, for example.  What people originally wanted was to hear the news over their back fence for free.  What they ended up paying for to get it was a massive profit machine and a steampunk internet constructed of bits of cheap paper, gigantic Gutenberg presses, newspaper boys, and Jimmy Olsen’s. 

You can’t continue to monetize that dying monstrosity with micro-payments and pay walls. 

What you can do to help pay for it, however, is to get Steve Ballmer to drop loads of cash in your pocket as he feuds with his search engine nemesis, Google.  And trust me folks, Ballmer has no choice.  Google is going for Microsoft’s jugular.

What will happen?  The only company in this menage a trois that has a firm grasp on a 21st century business strategy is Google.  Microsoft and Newscorp will still be engaged in trying to pluck coins out of each others pockets when the meteor strikes.

“Microsoft To Pay Content Providers to ‘De-index’ from Google”

It is no secret that Microsoft is doing whatever it can to eat away at Google’s immense market share of the search market, with Bing being its most ambitious effort yet. Well, it seems the battle just got a whole lot dirtier, as The Financial Times has uncovered news that Microsoft has approached several news content providers, offering them money if they “de-index” their sites from Google.

Update:  Seth Godin puts a fine point on the matter.   See his post to read why the following assertion is obviously true.  Unless, of course, you’re Steve Ballmer, looking to pay good money to hose up Google (instead of running a top flight search engine).  A strategy that reminds me of the time that Microsoft funded SCO allowing it to bring a lawsuit against IBM for Linux copyright violations.Seth’s Blog: Rupert Murdoch has it backwards

You don’t charge the search engines to send people to articles on your site, you pay them.

How MySpace Borged iMeem

MySpace grabs another music site.  Who is left standing?

Why imeem Really Sold Out

First, it was essentially a fire sale. Imeem, which in the past has been threatened into submission by large music labels, was feeling the heat from second-tier music labels wanting to get their pieces of flesh. On Oct. 21, The Orchard Enterprises, one of the largest independent record labels, sued imeem in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. According to the suit, imeem had to pay $150,000 per infringement. On those terms, for multiple infringements, the total could have run into billions of dollars.

Static site generator as an alternative to WordPress

Not for everyone, but if your need for speed, ease of maintenance, and security top your need to easily add content dynamically – it may be for you.

Five reasons to use a static site generator instead of WordPress – Guestlist

The basic idea is that your website is composed of a number of layouts, pages, and blog posts, which Jekyll stitches together into a set of static files during a single build step – not at runtime. This gives us a couple of neat advantages over traditional hosted publishing software like WordPress, which generates pages dynamically.

The Freesound Project

A database of sounds under Creative Commons license.  There are search and random sound options, as well as user tags and geotags.  You can mashup several tracks at once.   Useful if you need sound effects or background for a web page.

freesound :: home page

The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focusses only on sound, not songs. This is what sets freesound apart from other splendid libraries like ccMixter. New to this site? Read the What is Freesound page to learn more!

Facebook acquires Friendfeed.

Interesting in light of how, just recently, Facebook cut off Friendfeed’s access.  It had also cut RSS out of its own API.  Clearly, Facebook has recognized the value of RSS … but only if it can control the profits.  

Facebook Acquires FriendFeed (Updated)

Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, we’ve learned. We’re gathering details now.

At this point details on the acquisition are still very sparse, but it’s clearly a good match. Over the last year or so, Facebook has “borrowed” quite a few features that FriendFeed popularized, including the ‘Like’ feature and an emphasis on real-time news updates.

AOL snapping up old media journalists

Great for journalists down on their luck.  If only AOL was on a stronger footing itself ….

AOL’s Business Model: “High-Quality Content to Scale” | BNET Media Blog | BNET

“Principally, we have none of the legacy costs associated with producing print publications, for example. We don’t own printing presses, or fleets of delivery trucks. We don’t have the elaborate editorial structures geared to producing products over a printing press.”

Seizing on this advantage, AOL has been scooping up talented journalists right and left, with some 1,500 on board already – a number it expects to double or even triple over the coming year. Some have been hired as full-time employees; the greater portion work as freelancers.