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Murdoch Demands Kindle Users' Info
In yet another move to display how antiquated and completely ignorant of digital culture he is, Rupert Murdoch has started demanding that Amazon hand over user info for all Kindle users. This demand comes right after Murdoch just finished negotiating a larger share of revenue from Amazon sales. At least Amazon hasn't decided to comply with this request yet. "'As I've said before, the traditional business model has to change rapidly to ensure that our journalistic businesses can return to their old margins of profitability,' Murdoch said. 'Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting.'"
What the hell is this? Twitter? some blag? Where on earth is the link to TFA?
I was just about to post this... Everything he controls is pure blather and bustle. I hope he starts 'charging' so he can find out how much people truly value his sputem.
I can see why he expects this information... he's a publisher who's spent the lion's share of his career dealing in print media. If people were subscribing to the dead-tree edition of the Journal, he would have not just their names but their home addresses and probably phone numbers as well. Now subscribers want to pay for the same publication--the Wall Street Journal--and the publisher expects to have the same information they would if they were sending the physical newspaper. What's the big deal? Just cause something is delivered electronically rather than via the post, that makes basic subscriber information suddenly privacy-threatening?
I'm as paranoid about privacy concerns as the next [rational] person, but I don't see what the big deal is here.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Moreover, he said that it won't be only the newspaper sites that adopt this change; foxnews.com, he said, will also start charging for content. "It has a huge and loyal and profitable [web] audience already," he said.
Now hes CHARGING us for his bullshit propaganda? Jeeeeeeeeez.......
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Right, because if you're against one entertainment "news" network, you're obviously in favor of their competitor. I commend your logic.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
(don't mean you, SatanicPuppy, I mean Murdoch). The Rotten Bastard's right - quality journalism costs money. The "I can get anything for free, so why should I pay" ethos (in my opinion) leads to watered down crap being offered for free. People cannot make a living off "Free". Look at what we have now - 'free' news sources that don't give us much news but give us a whole lotta opinion masquerading as news (blogs, anyone?). It costs nothing to post your opinion based off of factoids gleaned from other sources, without even considering bias. But to produce honest-to-Gawd news? That's a quality product, produced by professionals who know how to separate fact from bias, and how to tell the difference between the two? That is worth money. The Genocidal Tyrant's completely within his rights to demand that Amazon give him an increased percentage of profits PLUS the names and contact info of all the WSJ subscribers through the Kindle. He should have them anyway. The WSJ has not suffered any decrease in quality - it's political bent is well known but the Rotten Bastard actually kept one of his promises and continued to support its journalistic integrity. I was worried as everyone else when he bought it, but then I was surprised to learn that the WSJ actually increased its quality. I don't read the WSJ for its opinions, I read it because I want good, factual business news that cuts through all the BS and tells it as it is. And that costs money. Furthermore (in my opinion), we need to face facts: In order to get good quality journalism, we have to PAY for it. Journalism was always supported by Print advertising. Now, it's going to be supported by pay-to-view websites. Free only lasts a while in an economic boom (anyone remember the dot-com rush where EVERYTHING was free), then reality sets in and you have to pay for what you get. And I will be happy to pay for it. I will pay for honest, high quality journalism (I already do), as long as I get my money's worth.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Yes, but he wouldn't have this information if you walked into a book store and bought the paper from them, even if you bought the paper every single day which seems closer to how the Kindle process works.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Yeah but the reason I buy from amazon is that I only have to trust that one very trustworthy vendor. Only Amazon has my card info and my address. If I want to buy a book, that doesn't mean that some random bookstore in North Dakota now has my personal information.. it's all handled through a trusted party.
"'As I've said before, the traditional business model has to change rapidly to ensure that our journalistic businesses can return to their old margins of profitability,'
Those old margins are gone. Sorry Rupert.
OK, I am not sorry.
Why do you need the names of your subscribers?
"foxnews.com, he said, will also start charging for content. "It has a huge and loyal and profitable [web] audience already," he said."
wait, didn't you jst say it wasn't and that's why you are going to start charging?
I hope Bezos calls his bluff and gives him the finger. What, Murdoch is going to toss the current Kindle income out the window?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In the US we have moved from having a 1960's type society that is local/national with very similar interests to a society that is very diverse.
What we think is newsworthy varies greatly. I read technical news information, Eve-Online news, and have completely lost interest in local and national news because it is so depressing.
Traditional news sources simply can not cover everything. So having a portal to bring the news an individual want to hear about into a central location is where things are going.
The journalistic sources that can accomplish this will be the victors of this change. I would love to sign into my news account and have detailed journalist analysis of the latest things going on in non Concord space, insights into the specific software packages I use, and what's new in the world of Maltese K9s.
Just repeating news releases and the same thing I can see on CSPAN, sans the spin, as well as bogus headlines such as "We caught Bin Laden" (AP/Reuters) is not going to cut it anymore.
My opinion.
That's stupid. Cable television got popular because it provided more content than you could get for free, and because (at least initially) it didn't have advertising that the OTA channels did.
The problem is that Murdoch thinks that someone owns the news. That is seriously different than the television situation. You CANNOT copyright facts. It would be perfectly legal for someone to read the WSJ, rewrite the stories, and give them away for free with small ads nearby. And I suspect that is exactly what will happen if paywalls are erected.
Microtransactions DO NOT WORK. They never will work... the cost to do the transaction will always be higher than the value transferred. I am not going to put payment details into every random site I want to look at. Nor is anyone else. Some very specialist sites can do that, but for everyone as a whole? It'll never happen.
Things will remain free because that's what the marginal cost drives them to. Hell, look at your comment... should I have paid a microtransaction fee to look at it? Should you get reimbursed for writing it? How about my response here... should I charge you for being able to read it?
The mistake everyone is making is thinking that journalism from newspapers is somehow special. It isn't. In fact, bloggers and many other people who are actually close to the action do a better job of reporting what is actually going on, instead of it being skewed through the lens of a reporter that may or may not give a shit about the subject matter being reported.
My point is that the world is changing. Newspapers are no longer the gateway to information. And if they insist on trying to do things like charging micropayments, all they will do is accelerate their demise. Unless they do something like the RIAA/MPAA and essentially buy off some senators and judges and so on. I know that's what the AP is trying to do.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
More to the point - the Newscorp (And the Journal), like any other company, have every right to subcontract out service. Or not subcontract out service.
But there is a real entitlement issue going on when, having done so, they think it's somehow unfair for them to not know the clients of the subcontracter. Hate to tell you this Murdoch, welcome to the world of real business.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
What does Rupert Murdoch, of all people, know about Quality Journalism?
He must know everything about quality journalism to be able to avoid it so perfectly.
Except that, ever since the 1984 debacle, Amazon's trustworthiness, especially in regards to the Kindle, has been slowly eroding away. I'm definitely waiting to see what Amazon does. If they do hand it over, deleting all of the personal data in my account may be worth considering.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
In fact, by any reasonable measure, "digital culture" has vastly increased publishers' awareness of who their customers are and what, precisely, they are reading and ignoring. So the premise of the summary's bias is blatantly false. Right or wrong, Murdoch's demand is perfectly in keeping with the times. And it is not at all a foregone conclusion that Murdoch's business instincts are wrong; he believes good reporting is worth paying for, and Kindle WSJ subscribers are examples of precisely that.
But amazon does know who the WSJ/Kindle subscribers are. The article summary is painting Murdoch as a dinosaur who just doesn't understand how things work these days: "In yet another move to display how antiquated and completely ignorant of digital culture he is, Rupert Murdoch has started demanding that Amazon hand over user info for all Kindle users"
Yes, notice the word "culture". Of course Amazon COULD turn over the goods on their users (likely they'd have to change their privacy policy, but that's doable). The question is SHOULD they, and would they suffer backlash and a loss of faith and face as a result.
I'm pretty sure the answer is "yes." I don't want my name and various demographics going to Rupert Murdoch, even if I do subscribe to his rag (which, sadly, used to be an excellent paper).
Since when has any member of the Murdoch media empire ever engaged in "Quality journalism". This is the owner of Fox News who went to a court of appeals to affirm their right to force their journalists to lie in their broadcasts. This is the owner of the network which, in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq, ran stories that Saddam had drones he was planning to use to spray chemical and biological weapons on American cities.
Granted the WSJ is probably still doing useful reporting, I don't think Rupert has managed to infect it with his spin machine.... yet.
@de_machina
Whenever I buy something I do not want to have my name address and other private information to be spread to the whole world. I want this to be only given to the store I buy from and only for the STRICT necessary purpose of the transaction. And I have got the privacy law of my country agreeeing with me. You may live in a country where all privacy is long gone, but that is your problem. *IF* a store gives my private info to anybody against my will and it was not forseen in the contract I signed with them, then they get my lawyer on their ass, and *I* will win. And if they put originally in their contract that they will provide my user info for anything beyond simple delivery (markleting, etc...) , then they don't get my sale to begin with. And in what I agreed upon with the online storeI use it is *NOT* written they will sell or give my info.
Secondly that a privacy invasive procedure is NOW available whereas it was not available before, does not mean it should be used. Visa/MC can also "sell" the lsit of all what you buy to marketer. And it would certainly be a very very precise info. That does not mean it is desirable on any ground.
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