Getting your content onto the internet is quite the challenge in todays online world. For one, there is millions of websites all vying for your attention, each with their helping of information waiting to be devoured by your hungry eyes and minds. With so many sites to weed through, search engines are easily one of, if not the most important tool for crawling through the internet. So why would you want to purposely block yourself from being found? Perhaps that’s a good question for Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp. His intentions of ridding his services of being searchable via search engines (Google in particular) as well as general distaste for anything free has pretty much earned him the image of someone stuck in the past, unable to adapt, and ultimately a failure in the digital realm of the world. Accusations of such aren’t exactly child’s play as the world is moving digital. Knowing how to manipulate this new world for your benefit is the difference between being a giant and out of business.
In the case of Mr. Murdoch, he sadly shows us that time and time again he has no clue how to use or market himself or his businesses on the internet. His latest comments and thoughts in a recent interview with Sky News Australia (video inside) clearly show he is taking his services and content in the wrong direction…
The social networking bans making there way across various professional level sports is not only stupid, but extremely ignorant and short sighted on the leagues’ parts. First, by protecting old archaic business models and not embracing a new, modern technology, they are pushing themselves and their message further into irrelevance. Thankfully for us techies, Bengals player, Chad Ochocinco, isn’t taking this affront to modern news reporting or fan interacting lightly. Mr. Ochocinco is starting his own news network to “cut out the middleman”. Not just any news network mind you, but a Twitter-based reporting operation including many different individuals.
He seems to know what he’s doing too. With over 300,000 Twitter followers and a pretty big backing, I can’t deny that I’m rooting for him. You see, the problem is that old news and news organizations think they “own” the news when in fact they can’t and never will. News is not something you own. Any person can recycle the news to anyone they please. The fact that so many organizations and leagues think they have a right to deny a simple human being the right to tell another human an interesting story means that these oppressive organizations and leages have no right to be in business. Period.
The news, and the world on a larger level is moving online, going digital. Holding yourself back while at the same time trying to hold others back will only harm you and your colleagues. While such people and companies continue to struggle to make a buck, the intelligent and technologically competent will easily pass these old timers and introduce new, innovative and more consumer friendly services.
+1 Chad Ochocinco — Power to the people!
ESPN
Bing is about to get a couple more tools in it’s fight for a larger slice of the search market share. Qi Lu, Microsoft’s president of Online Services is set to announce at Web 2.0 summit impressive though separate business deals with both Facebook and Twitter. Real time search via big search players is coming. Bing will be the first to offer such a convenience. The benefits of real time results form Facebook and Twitter integrated into your “normal” search results have some big positives. Most notably, having up to date information at any point at your finger tips opens massive doors. No longer will search results via search engines (well, Bing anyway) consist of solely outdated, delayed information. In a way, it’s like an extension of Twitter — giving you a way to not only see real time information about your search topic, but also deeper, less time sensitive information right along side. After the these two features go live, Bing will be getting another looksie from myself as this whole integrated real time search hoopla has me quite interested. You?
**Update: At the same Summit 2.0 event where the Bing/Twitter/Facebook deal was announced, Marissa Mayer also announced a similar deal between Google and Twitter. Select Google searches will now be accompanied by Tweets via Twitters real time stream. Now that the field is a tad more level, who are you going to give your support to?
All Things D
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