Google: No strategy to help newspapers
Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on January 7, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Google is powerless to help newspapers when it comes to new business
model ideas or a new strategy, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Fortune
Magazine in an article out Wednesday.
"I wish I had a brilliant idea, but I don't," Schmidt said. "We're careful at Google with our money. We write large checks when we have a great strategy. And we don't yet have that strategy."
"I wish I had a brilliant idea, but I don't," Schmidt said. "We're careful at Google with our money. We write large checks when we have a great strategy. And we don't yet have that strategy."
Google suggests newspapers integrate their products more with Google,
so that the online giant can "help them better monetize their customer
base," Schmidt told Fortune Magazine.
"I don't think our purchasing a newspaper would solve the business problems. It would help solidify the ownership structure, but it doesn't solve the underlying problem in the business. Until we can answer that question we're in this uncomfortable conversation. I think the solution is tighter integration. The term I've been using is 'merge without merging.' The Web allows you to do that, where you can get the Web systems of both organisations fairly well integrated, and you don't have to do it on an exclusive basis," Schmidt said, according to Fortune Magazine.
Schmidt pointed out that the problem is not that there isn't demand for newspapers' products, as the news is always in demand, but that the business model is unable to support the product.
Dan Froomkin, of Neiman's Watchdog Blog, writes that although Google doesn't have the power to completely help newspapers replace lost print revenues with online revenues, the search giant could lend a hand and: "adopt" some newspapers to help them boost their technology capabilities, which they would then pass on; create a non-profit that would buy newspapers and run them as non-profits; and hire laid-off journalists to create an open-source wire service, to name a few of his ideas.
"I don't think our purchasing a newspaper would solve the business problems. It would help solidify the ownership structure, but it doesn't solve the underlying problem in the business. Until we can answer that question we're in this uncomfortable conversation. I think the solution is tighter integration. The term I've been using is 'merge without merging.' The Web allows you to do that, where you can get the Web systems of both organisations fairly well integrated, and you don't have to do it on an exclusive basis," Schmidt said, according to Fortune Magazine.
Schmidt pointed out that the problem is not that there isn't demand for newspapers' products, as the news is always in demand, but that the business model is unable to support the product.
Dan Froomkin, of Neiman's Watchdog Blog, writes that although Google doesn't have the power to completely help newspapers replace lost print revenues with online revenues, the search giant could lend a hand and: "adopt" some newspapers to help them boost their technology capabilities, which they would then pass on; create a non-profit that would buy newspapers and run them as non-profits; and hire laid-off journalists to create an open-source wire service, to name a few of his ideas.
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