Foremski's Take: Forbes CEO Says GOOG Does Evil

Why is it Google's task to find a business model for old media to succeed? If old media has a problem with Google, they should innovate themselves or put up a robots.txt file and shut the fuck up. Oh...that's right, they won't do that because Google GIVES THEM FREE TRAFFIC.

Newspapers are in the business of providing timely and interesting information to people. No where in that statement is there a requirement that paper actually be used. Go completely virtual and huge savings will be found.

Bitch about Google all you want (Yahoo News is sending more traffic to new sites by the way), but it ain't there concern.

Yes, Google is not the enemy. But if it doesn't help media companies there will be a lot less content. That's bad for Google. What's the point of doing a search if there is little that is new? You'd think it would realize there's a connection.
GOOG doesn't appreciate the value of content because it doesn't have to make it. It finds it for free. It monetizes that content to cover its own low-cost business expenses but media companies can't do the same. Getting extra traffic is pointless if you can't monetize it, it becomes an extra cost.

I don't buy that argument that there will be less content if traditional media fails and cannot continue. The web is going through an explosion of content. For every journalist that stops there will be 10's, 100's (or more) enthusiasts who will do it for free.

This is not unique to the Internet or this particular Google/monetisation issue. This type of problem manifests itself in all of our social systems today, be that Internet, regulatory or health, etc.

Our globalised world changes so rapidly today that we struggle to keep up with the changes. Google and the monitisation of content is a small example of this. It permeates every aspect of our societies now. We are continually having to play catchup.

A prime example of this is our recent responses to the pandemic threat and it is a perfect demonstration of how our response to large system stimuli are ineffective. Our systems are evolving rapidly from small inputs to very large global systems, very rapidly.

A number of years ago the world embraced the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) mechanism for managing change. Although this was somewhat successful in its initial introduction to localised systematic changes, when applied to a larger system it is lacking.

It may be fair to assume that we are no longer in control of many of the global systems and we are struggling to understand how they work. The economic crash is another perfect example of this. The collective industries have been talking about monetising content for years now and the system keeps on changing... the best laid plans.

Governments are stockpiling Tamiflu for the possible pandemic, yet in 2007 the WHO reported all strain of H1N1 were developing resistence to Tamiflu. Last year some H1N1 strains achieved 100% resistence in South Africa and Australia. However our institutional response as lucdirous as it may seem, was to order more stockpiles of Tamiflu, as that "was" the best plan - http://www.of-networks.co.uk/blog/Tamiflu_resistence

This is not necessarily because governments are incompetent, they are just subject to the same rapid evolution of large systems, just like Forbes and the co-writer of the Rick Astley song.

I think the old chinese curse applies, "May you live in interesting times".

I think Jim Spanfeller is finally feeling the effects of over advertising on Forbes.com. Nobody wants to read a website that is filled with Ads. Furthermore, Jim should never be criticizing anyone, Forbes has the least respect for their advertisers than any publisher I have ever seen. They have done some horrific things to drive up their monthly impressions in the past and I am sure they are still willing step over that line today as well.

Cronan: There's already a ton of content on the web but what kind of quality do you want? What type of expertise is represented? Content produced for free has abut the same value - zero. And how are these citizen journalists going to pay for food and rent? Someone will produce the food and rent for free too?

Brian: I know what you mean about over advertising. Ads that crawl across the page and obscure the content, overloading pages with tons of ads, etc. And iffy stats on ad serving. But in some respects it represents a desperate search for online revenues.

Perhaps it should be clear now that content is now much more important than advertising... something that has not been true of the print-era press.

I am reminded of my first experience working in the local media some thirty years ago when articles were edited to shorter forms to make room for increased sales of advertising space. At that time, content was something which took up valuable space that a local furniture company, say, would need to promote a major sale of reclining chairs. The publisher's goal was, simply, money. Advertising = income. Content = wasted space.

What you start to realize when you look at Google is that Content IS Advertising now. The competition for space is eliminated when space is endless. Content then seeks the Search Engine, and advertising is now how it gets into the Top 10 of searches. The furniture sale and the report on the condition of the economy compete on an equal footing.

I think the reason why the old media business is taking hit is because a substantial portion of their so-called professionally produced content have been fillers with limited values. Many of these organizations were able to get away with it, because their wholes were greater than sum of their parts, and by parts I mean, articles, ads, brand, and the paper on which they’re printed. These filler content with limited values are now being replaced by subject matter experts whose full time job is journalist who are able to bring much more in-depth and relevant knowledge to the readers. This is especially true in financial news analysis where the access to raw information (not from news sources) can be done without leaving your desk. This is one area where I constantly observe non-journalists trump journalists in terms of quality of content.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe professional journalism will never go away. It will simply be a smaller and highly focused business, and the downsizing will continue. Content will always be king, and the owners will eventually prevail. Look what’s happening to Youtube after Hulu arrived.

Perhaps you should do some live gigs, Tom. That is how the musicians are doing it. As the distribution cost of music approaches zero, the production houses go out of business and the musos go on the road. The best do fine. Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison.

As Clay Shirkey says it is no longer filter then publish but the reverse. Now I get to do my own filtering, I can afford to read only the best content in the world, whether news or information: so I do. It is easy to use the good sites to springboard and then Search, for fine tuning.

Bill: With infinite space there are infinite opportunities to post advertising. But the click through rates are abysmal and getting worse. Littering the Internet with more advertising hoping for a conversion is not a good way to improve user experience.

pcurve: Yes, I agree totally...
Neil: Is there a market for hacks on the road? More like hacks (and flacks) on the tracks ... as the future train comes rolling through :-)