10 Nov 09 Murdoch & Google
My first thought at hearing that Rupert Murdoch was considering pulling his news sites from Google’s news servers was ‘Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish’.
I have had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal’s daily podcast at Audible.com for a few years, but I’m watching closely to see how the content changes since News Corporation took over.
I don’t like the way News Corporation manipulates the news. In a quest to keep up viewing figures and newspaper circulation they target much of their output at the lowest quality end. Trashy tabloid titbits, and sensationalist soundbites does not make for decent news material in my view.
Much of News Corporation’s output is full of political bias and partisan politics too. That, I have always felt is an insult. I want to be given news, and facts, that I can go on to form my own judgment about. I don’t need or want to be given news with any particular slant. I realize that Murdoch likes to appeal to the right-wing nutjobs, but I am not one of those. I’m also not a bleeding heart liberal, and would (and do) complain about biased output in that direction too.
Still, if Murdoch is able to use his wealth to manipulate the Internet and screw it up like he has with traditional media, then the outlook for fair and unbiased, quality news is bleak.
Tags: google, murdoch, news corporation, search
10 Apr 08 It Gets Worse
First there’s news that Microsoft is going to start using it’s well-known bullying tactics to try and get its way in its efforts to take over Yahoo.
Now, the latest rumor is that Murdoch’s News Corporation – well known for its political bias, and it’s dumbing down of all that it touches – is weighing in on the act too.
All this in an effort to try tip Google out of it’s #1 position in the search engine rankings, and to stifle its threat to Microsoft with its excellent online email and document programs?
As I’ve written before, I’m one of those people that spurn the overpriced, overbloated, slow memory and resource hogging Microsoft offerings such as MS-Office for Gmail, and Google Docs. Google’s products are not only free, but more importantly they work. Gmail offers better and faster search capabilities than Outlook, doesn’t produce reams of extra code in each email, and doesn’t take up megabytes of my hard drive space that I then need to spend extra money on to access remotely when I’m out of my office.
I don’t even run Windows on most of my computers.
So, why, Microsoft, would I want to spend $400 on your product, and how will you taking over Yahoo, change my mind?
Tags: document programs, drive space, email, extra money, gmail, google, google docs, hard drive, megabytes, microsoft, microsoft offerings, ms office, murdoch, news corporation, political bias, reams, search capabilities, search engine rankings, slow memory, yahoo
