Why Are Publications Trying To Bite The Google Hand That Feeds Them?
from the questions-worth-asking... dept
Someone anonymously submitted a decent writeup by John A. Byrne, the former editor-in-chief at Business Week who recently left (amid the shakeup due to Bloomberg buying the magazine) to start a new media effort called C-Change Media. In this blog post, Byrne argues that the media complaining about Google sending them traffic is biting the hand that feeds them. There's really not much new in the writeup, which runs over the same ground we've covered for a few years now, but it's a nice succinct summary of the situation:Rupert Murdoch's protestations aside, there is no doubt that Google is driving vast amounts of traffic to websites run by traditional media companies. In recent years, most of BusinessWeek.com's growth came from search optimization and direct traffic. Up until only three years ago, the number one referring domain at BusinessWeek was always a portal until Google's popularity replaced Yahoo Finance and MSN Money as the top referrer. Search--largely Google--now accounts for some 45% of the traffic at BW.com, up from less than 20% in 2006. That simple little box is driving vast amounts of advertising inventory (and therefore revenue) to the site. It's a similar story everywhere else.Indeed. It's the point we've been trying to make for ages. Newspapers were always in the community building business. They would bring together a community of folks and then sell their attention to advertisers. That was the business. But they thought they were in the news delivery business, and that's confusing them -- leading them to do things that are anti-community and anti-relationship (registration walls, paywalls, etc.) that actually harm the value of the community and limit that. Thus, people are going elsewhere for community -- whether it's other media publications or social network sites -- and newspapers are lashing out at the wrong party: the one who sends them traffic.
In the war between the traditional media brands and Google, the old cliche about biting the hand that feeds you is certainly in play. Some of the complaints from media can be attributed to sour grapes. Many incumbents resent that most efforts to find information on the Web no longer starts with a brand. It starts with Google which is largely brand agnostic. So, in effect, Google has become this massive transaction machine, and as everyone knows, transactions are the antithesis of relationships. If a brand wants a relationship with its audience, Google is getting in the way. It's how Google was able to siphon nearly $22 billion last year in advertising from traditional media. And it's the most obvious proof that media brands have diminished in value. People are more routinely turning to Google to get information, rather than a brand known for its expertise in a given area. They'll google (yes, I'm using Google as a verb) leadership before going to The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, BusinessWeek, or Harvard Business Review. They'll google President Clinton before going to The New York Times, Time, or Newsweek. Why? Because they trust Google to serve up unbiased results; because they want to see what is generally available out there and not tied to a brand, and because most brands no longer wield the power and influence they did years ago.
Instead of complaining about this and threatening to block Google from crawling a site, media companies would do well to step back and more fully understand what they really need to do: rebuild the relationships they have with their readers, viewers, users. To offset the massive transaction machine that Google is, media brands need to focus on restoring relationships with users. That's why "user engagement" is not an idle phrase to throw around but is essential to making a brand successful online. Original content isn't enough. Gee-whiz tech tricks aren't enough. Neither is a fancy design or a search trap gimmick. You need an audience that is deeply and meaningfully engaged in the content of a site, so engaged in fact that many of those users become collaborators, and that requires tremendous amounts of work and editorial involvement with the audience.
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Filed Under: john a. byrne, media, publication, search engines, traffic
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What this gentleman misses is that, absent Google, the people would still go to the WSJ, Newsweek, Time, CNN, Fox, looking for the news. Those properties are destination properties already, without the influence of Google. They are the type news sources people go to, no matter what else is going on.
I didn't need Google to find cnn.com or foxnews.com before, and I still don't need Google to help me find them now.
It is like anything. Google traffic can benefit some sites, it can be a wasteful horde of unwanted guest for others, and it can be at best a bit player for others. There is no single one answer that is right.
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Of course, they don't.
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Of course. But what would be wonderful is if they got the traffic AND got paid for the privilege.
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They all seem big to me.
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Carry on.
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Google have the power to end this nonsense overnight....
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Disgree with the first guy
You keep suggesting that these folks would do fine without google, I suggest the fact that they have not enacted paywalls (the majority of them) and not changed their robot.txt to exclude means they disagree with you.
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Re: Disgree with the first guy
The same is true amongst my set of friends, who are in the 40-55 age range.
That would remain true if Google didn't exist. We'd all just find another aggregator. The big names are not trusted and are largely ignored -- and that's certainly not Google's fault. Corporate news has simply proven that they aren't worth any time or attention. Without quality product, there's no reason to go there.
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techdirt ....
Techdirt ... nuff said
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I am in the 55 Plus crowd
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Re: I am in the 55 Plus crowd
Heck, Mike appears to be making an entire living out of pushing in part a combination of narrowly selected "factoids", one sided views, and wishful thinking.
The non-MSM sources are often run by people who have a message, a point of view, and are working very hard to shape the facts to meet their pre-determined ideals.
When you find one that you like, you think they know more than the MSM. It isn't that they are right, it's just that they agree with your pre-determined ideals.
Enjoy it. Age doesn't matter.
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Could you help me out with some sources of your own?
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Re: Re: Re: I am in the 55 Plus crowd
Your answer is just a smear, which suggests that you know I am right, you cannot argue the point, so instead you attact the poster and attempt to stick a label on them.
So, would you like to debate the points, or would you like to try explain my apparent "ties to the MSM"?
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And btw, I recall - and this was stated in a story here on Techdirt - when one of Fox News' reporters was let go for not doing a story the way his bosses wanted, he revealed that the head of Fox said, basically "the truth is what I say it is." How much more corrupt can you get? And if you could find that story, Mike, I'd appreciate it, because I know I read it here a while back.
Also, consider this, TAM: when was the last time you saw an MSM report that reflected badly on upper level members of the MSM? When was the last time you saw them expose corruption in politicians, except those they want to smear? When was the last time you saw them ask questions not already staged and prewritten? When was the last time you saw them even acknowledge politicians not affiliated with the two big parties? You can't trust news put out by a corporate entity because profit will always win out over truth in that environment.
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You wish me to what, prove the absence of something? You wish me to explain the square root of -1 to a caveman too? Why not give me easier jobs, like getting Obama's autograph while his is in his limo at speed... sheesh!
I personally dislike Fox News, I know that they aren't covering both sides of the story. But what they are doing is only being exactly like many of the online sources (visits Drudge lately?). You can find conservative lean, liberal lean, and a whole bunch of stupid lean out there.
But outside of a very few cases, the MSM in general reports the stories straight up, offering up what they know, and then adding opinion to try to put things together in context.
Websites? Blogs? Online "newsy" sites? Most of them work it backwards, starting with an opinion and offering up only the facts that support their opinion. This is also what Fox News often does, which is why they are poorly regarded by most people with brains.
Even Techdirt here starts out backwards. Mike has an agenda, his personal belief list, and he will only run stories (and expose you to facts in those stories) that support his agenda. He will purposely ignore facts that don't line up, or will dismiss them as unimportant. He has done this on things like the UK music industry reports (he is all about "live is way up" but overall consumer spending on music is flat as the plains for almost 10 years). He dismisses the trend in Sweden to increased music sales since the IPRED came into play, calling it a "dead cat bounce". He won't even open a new topic to discuss it, he just dismisses it.
Slant. MSM has it in general terms, but the web has it in very specific ways, very narrow of focus. It's basic tin hatter mentality, given credibility by appearing in Google's search results.
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Re: Re: I am in the 55 Plus crowd
- Sounds like you are talking about fox news
"The non-MSM sources are often run by people who have a message, a point of view, and are working very hard to shape the facts to meet their pre-determined ideals."
- Sorry to disappoint you, but MSM does this as well if not better and more often than the non-MSM to which you refer. MSM has a tendency to cooperate amongst themselves and publish the same story - no matter how biased it is. And MSM does not appreciate the little people publishing facts about stories which MSM has tried to coverup, warp, slant, whatever term you prefer.
"When you find one that you like, you think they know more than the MSM. It isn't that they are right, it's just that they agree with your pre-determined ideals."
- You must be talking about the teabaggers. Most people do not fall into stereotype you have described. Believe it or not, there are those out there that actually read, watch, listen to many sides of a story, issue, etc and come up with their own opinion.
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Re: I am in the 55 Plus crowd
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Quality of Their Brand
I think that John A. Byrne has it right on the money. What is missing is community. And that is what is going to keep people loyal to their brand. As for content and news, there are too many competitors that do the same thing, half of them reprinting the same AP or Reuters stories as everybody else.
If they block Google and other search engines, it will be their own funeral. What they need to do is convert those Google visitors into loyal members of a community. That is what will set them apart and will be what makes their site stickier than it is now.
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And then it's like in many other businesses: try to send people away satisfied, to increase the amount of repeat business you get.
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It's About the Money
When cable was brand-new, cable companies would simply collect the local over-the-air channels and rebroadcast them over their cables without paying a dime. They were bringing more customers to these channels, just like Google brings new customers to these media companies. But they sued anyway, and if they didn't win the lawsuits they got the laws changed (I think it was mostly a state-level thing, not sure). The result is that cable companies pay local channels to rebroadcast them.
Similarly, these media companies are not unhappy about the additional clicks, they just want to change the balance of power and payment.
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