Jorgen returns with a link to an article by Jessica E. Vascellaro at the Wall Street Journal. In it, we see that Google, long considered the nemesis of publishing, is offering its services to help newspaper publishers get paid for their content.
The newspaper industry has been staring oblivion in the face since the beginning of the Internet, digital content and well, modern times, and they should listen to Google, rather than maintain the attitude that got them into this mess in the first place. That being: “The Internet is a flash in the pan. It won’t last.”
It sounds like a fairly simple fix with Master of the Search Engine Universe, Google, upgrading its current Google Checkout service to handle premium billing and subscription plans. They can simply tweak it to handle newspaper and magazine content.
Even though Google is often portrayed as the digital monster that’s taking over the world, I give it a bit of slack, since it seems if it were left to the newspaper publishers we would still be paying constantly rising prices for newspapers and magazines while retailers are fleeced for advertising space. I don’t even think there’d be radio, if it were left up to the newspaper industry.
The only way to control Google (or at least have some influence) is to work with Google. It obviously didn’t go away when the traditional corporate forces tried to ignore it, yah?
