Sam Zell(newly elected member of the board of directors of The Associated Press) vs. The Future

http://www.medialoper.com ^ | Monday April 9, 2007 | Kirk Biglione

[JerseyHighlander]

Sam Zell vs. The Future

Billionaire takeover artist Sam Zell has a problem. It has nothing to do with the financial structure of his proposed takeover of the Tribune Co., or the fact that he openly admits to knowing next to nothing about the newspaper business. No, Zell’s problem is that he seems to be fundamentally opposed to the one thing that could save newspapers like the LA Times.

Speaking to a group of Stanford Law School students last week, Zell asked rhetorically:

“If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content for nothing, what would Google do, and how profitable would Google be?”

While Zell claims he doesn’t know much about the newspaper business, he’s off to a good start in thinking like an old-school newspaper man.

[JerseyHighlander]

Just months after Zell and Murdoch take positions as directors of the Associated Press, the Ap starts a war against the First Amendment with aims to boost Zell's and Murdoch's media empires.

This is an excerpt, read the rest...

[ConservativeMind]

Ping of interest.

[Wiseghy]

Ferget these guys. AP is so biased, it doesn’t really qualify as “news” anymore.

[KarlInOhio]

“If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content for nothing, what would Google do, and how profitable would Google be?”

Very. The news search is a distant third behind web and image searches. Maybe fourth behind maps. And if I couldn't do Google news searches I'd be much less likely to go to the newspaper's website.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I wonder if Google will have to pay because their search results include more than 4 words of the AP stories?

[iopscusa]

So Sam Zell bought these dying Newzpapers to kill them off?

[abb]

Nah. Zell, like many uber-rich folks, begin believing their own PR and think they’re so smart they can make no mistakes.

He was blinded by all the foo-foo dust put out by the Tribune Company (LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday) and others in the Drive-By Media. They convinced him the shift in advertising from the Old Media to the New Media was temporary and he had the business genius to fix it.

Wrong.

This is a secular change in communications and information sharing. Think pony express vs. the telegraph. Think printing press vs. manual transcription. That’s what is happening. Zell invested in quill pen manufacture just as Johan Gutenberg invented the printing press.

[iopscusa]

Thanks for that ABB, I just wondered how Zell got snookered, him being such a smart money maker...wonder if age has anything to do with his falling for the Dinosauer print media?

[bvw]

Google -- at least their original business model -- has a big problem. Links. People don't link anyMore -- they google up all the relevant sites. Google's model, and it's power, came from weighing the value of links. Basically a page that had a lot of links to it is considered more authoritative and gets listed higher in the search results.

But why link anymore? IMO many links that still exist are decrepit! They are links that were laid down at page launch and have not since been touched. Links age quickly. Why bother with them -- much faster and more reliable to search?

Yet -- CATCH 22 TIME! -- the less intellectual energy people spend creating helpful links, the less well Google's search works. And everybody uses Google!

[abb]

It happens more often than we hear about. Remember the billionaire Limey (Joseph Lewis) that bought Bear Stearns stock for $100/share last year? $800 million, gone. Poof.

[JerseyHighlander]