API started it. No, Google started it or at least plays a leading role compromising the newspaper subscription business. API called it, accurately the role of a “frenemy”. John Koblin of The New York Observer reported that Bill Keller, New York Times Executive Editor used the term to describe the problem when he said,”Google is one of those companies that we generally refer to as a frenemy.” He actually went on to say that “on balance the traffic they receive from Google is beneficial and helps sustain their advertising business.” Ah but that’s only one part of their business model.
Google, the bad guys:
CNET reports, “The most recent attack, by Forbes.com Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, decried “the parasitical nature of its business model” and asserted that Google makes about $60 million a year directing people to the Forbes site.”
Google, the good guys:
In the CNET news article, Google: ?We?re good for journalism?, Stephen Shankland reported that Marissa Mayer, Vice President of search products and user experience and Manager of Google’s search and Google News sites, spoke on behalf of their activities related to the impact on journalism before a Senate subcommittee on communications, technology, and the Internet hearing on the future of journalism. Essentially Mayer said, “Google News and Google search provide a valuable free service to online newspapers specifically by sending interested readers to their sites at a rate of more than 1 billion clicks per month. Newspapers use that Web traffic to increase their readership and generate additional revenue,” she said, according to her prepared testimony which can also be found in the CNET article.
One blogger says of the API report, where they introduced the term frenemy, “Apparently, nobody at the API has actually read Humpty Dumpty, otherwise they would know that you can never put the pieces back together again.” She then lists API’s recommended five pronged business plan to help correct the problem.
The bottom line though – newspapers have to remake their business model since subscriptions and ad revenue are just not stacking up to meet expectations. Journalists are loosing their jobs and something needs to be done before more cities in the US loose their newspapers. Friend, foe or frenemy something’s got to change and change is a hard business – time to go to the mattresses ?
