Rupert Murdoch in talks with Microsoft, may give search engine Bing news exclusivity over Google.
Have you heard of Bing? No, it’s not Chandler on Friends. It’s Microsoft’s attempt to compete with the king of search engines, Google. Bing has been around since 3 June, 2009, but its market share is negligible compared to Google despite the fact that they both perform the same function.
In what industry analysts perceive as a panicked response to the evils of new media and declining News Corporation revenue, Rupert Murdoch has gone into talks with Microsoft to “remove its news content from Google’s search engine and making it available on.... the relatively uncool Bing”.
Murdoch, who has announced that his “pay wall” concept will charge users to access news content, has also applied similar logic in his competitive race with Google by turning to Microsoft. The Financial Times has reported that Microsoft would pay for Bing to receive news earlier than Google News, even if it means favouring one news organisation, such as the AP, over others.
One hopes this won't turn into another MySpace for Murdoch, as many say the Murdoch-Microsoft alliance forgets the fact that “barely anyone in America uses Bing”, much less in other parts of the world.
Alissa Ng is a communications student from the University of Western Australia, and an intern with the Walkley Foundation.
