Rupert Murdoch Hates Google, Loves the iPad 412
Hugh Pickens writes "The Register reports that News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, reiterated his disgust at how search engines handle news and called on old media to rethink how their stories are distributed on the web. 'It's produced a river of gold, but those words are being taken mostly from the newspapers,' said Rupert. 'I think they ought to stop it, that the newspapers ought to stand up and let them do their own reporting.' Murdoch added that the iPad was a 'wonderful tool' for listening to music, watching videos and reading newspapers. 'It may well be the saving of the newspaper industry,' by making it cheaper to distribute content to a broader audience, Murdoch said. 'I'm old, I like the tactile experience of the newspaper,' Murdoch said. '(But) if you have less newspapers and more of these, that's OK. It doesn't destroy the traditional newspaper, it just comes in a different form.'"
The Sooner the Better (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh grandpa! (Score:5, Interesting)
He's like the elderly relative at Thanksgiving who keeps saying racist things that would make everyone uncomfortable but they're so used to it they just roll their eyes and say "Oh Grandpa!" Is there any way this guy could not get it less? He understood how to be a Newspaper tycoon, but these days that skillset makes him roughly as useful as a candlestick maker or a wheelwright.
He keeps saying all this crazy stuff, but the guys who actually run Newscorp keep doing the opposite, lucky for them. They could easily edit their robots.txt and keep Google out, but they're smart enough to not only let Google in, but to let users coming in from Google slip past the pay wall . . .
Re:Oh grandpa! (Score:5, Interesting)
if he was clever about it, he'd offer apple a partnership where ipad users get free subscription to all news corp material for a year, and fund an apple search engine to take on google. throw in digitised copies of historical papers as part of the search service.
Re:Logically... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Sooner the Better (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why they investigated Madoff and brought about ...... uh, wait..... they ignored the information they were given about Madoff and did not investigate.
IMHO, traditional media has lost the right to claim that they provide an invaluable service through investigative journalism. Madoff isn't the only example where traditional media failed, there are many others. How did Drudge get started? Because traditional media would not touch a story, etc..
Re:Logically... (Score:3, Interesting)
Posting anonymously because the mentality in slashdot...
I see. So you only stand behind what you say when you know its gonna be popular, eh? Seriously, if you are going to fling poo from the sidelines spare us the justification.
Re:Endorsement (Score:5, Interesting)
In case you missed out on the last 40 odd years, Murdoch didn't get rich by being honest and forthright.
But karma's a bitch, if a little slow moving.
Re:Endorsement (Score:3, Interesting)
But I do use flashblock as I think advertisements don't need flash to reach me plus it's a noticeable drain on a slow connection.
The Theory of the Leisure class (Score:4, Interesting)
It is really a shame that more people have not read The Theory of the Leisure class [wikipedia.org], it rails against plutocrats, football players and kept women. It intelligently argues for the role of design and creativity for human progress over the barbarity of endless profit making and risk taking. Sadly Veblen died as a recluse in the hills of Palo Alto drinking heavily and writing rambling editorials ever so often in the local newspaper, he had devolved into a troll. 2 months later the stock market crash of 29' happened, I think that deserves a " Ha Ha".
The hero of the book is 'The Engineer' and 'The New Woman' and they totally get it on. Come on go download and read it.
Re:I'm torn... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only on Slashdot that Apple are treated as the number one company.
I've never understood the reason why they buy them - but let's be fair, I think you can forgive people's misunderstanding, when everytime we ask them, instead of coming up with actual reasons, objective examples of things it does better, instead we just get vague handwaving answers like "I can't explain it, it's just a new paradigm" or "You just have to use it, honest" (which incidentally reminds me of the religious argument "You just have to believe in Him, then you'll see the evidence).
It might not be reasons of "cool and hip", but "Buying it because my friend said it was the best, and I believed him" comes pretty close to that in my opinion.
So you say usability - give me an example of this?
this is one that murdoch can't win (Score:3, Interesting)
The sooner dead tree newspapers die the better. Google can't put them out of their misery fast enough.
Re:Logically... (Score:3, Interesting)