Google CEO Warns Newspapers Not To Anger Readers

Barence writes "Google CEO Eric Schmidt has hit back at newspaper bosses, warning them that they risk alienating readers in their war against news aggregators such as Google News. 'I would encourage everybody to think in terms of what your reader wants,' Schmidt said at a conference for the Newspaper Association of America. 'These are ultimately consumer businesses and if you piss off enough of them, you will not have any more.' Schmidt's rebuke follows a sustained attack on Google by newspaper bosses such as Rupert Murdoch, who have accused the search giant of 'stealing' their content without payment." Schmidt also suggested that newspapers need to expand their distribution methods to make better use of mobile technology, and a NY Times piece argues that the Associated Press' struggle against aggregators is futile since they're largely trying to give news stories to consumers for free anyway.

Comments

Re:He may be a lawyer, but he doesn't understand

[jtev]

I don't know where you get that farmers don't care about cattle. A single steer represents a sizeable investment, and a sizable return. Yes they try to avoid emotional attachment to the steer, but the health and wellbeing of the steer is quite important. The live price of beef is $.8250 per pound for a beef steer weighing 1300 lbs (Normal butchering weight for a beef steer). That means that the total steer is worth about $1100 This explains why ranchers are so eager to do anything they can, including artificial insemination, hormone implants, and factory farming to get their beef up to weight as quickly as possible. Dairy cattle are even more valuable, at least, the cows are. The steers are considered a byproduct, and typically sold at firesale prices and used by family farmers for personal consumption. Brood cows and proven stud bulls have even higher values than steers, because they are used to produce more steers. Also, happy beef tastes better. For beef for market most ranchers do not consider this to be a worry, since the market does not currently have a way to differentiate on that unless the farmer is selling directly to a high end reseraunt, on the other hand, if a farmer or rancher intends a particular steer, or cow, for their personal consumption, you can be sure that they will give that animal extra special attention. Getting back to newspapers with this, no, they newspaper doesn't care about its readers as readers, they care about them as eyes for the advertisments. Happy readers are more receptive of advertising, especially if, as is possible on the internet, the advertising is relevant to their interests. As their readership declines they have less and less to sell to the advertisers, just as if a steer gets ill, and starts to lose weight the rancher will have less and less to sell to the butcher. By attacking aggragators the newspapers are freaking out as if this is something that could destroy their entire herd, instead of something that means they need to treat the steer with penecillin (which I guess with this analogy is more interesting stories). Anyway, I think I've taken this analogy as far as I can, and much farther than I should have. Please pick a better analogy in the future.