Kindle Murdoch Show Down
August 9, 2009
The theme for News Corp.’s top dog is that great journalism is expensive. Mr. Murdoch has that right. The Daily Online Examiner ran a story that makes this goose nervous: “Clueless Murdoch Move: Without Subscribers Names, Might Break with Kindle”. The “clueless” surprised me. I bet it surprised Mr. Murdoch even more. Money equals brains, and Mr. Murdoch has a lot of money. Therefore, Mr. Murdoch is a smart person. Wendy Davis wrote:
In a statement that appears tone deaf to the privacy concerns surrounding digital media, the head of News Corp. recently announced that the company might stop allowing its material to be sold on the Kindle because Amazon doesn’t disclose subscriber names. “Kindle treats them as their subscribers, not as ours, and I think that will eventually cause a break with us,” he said this week.
I would like to have access to some of the individuals whom I research reading lists. That is difficult information to get. My hunch is that because digital systems make it possible to have new types of data, then some folks want that data for their own purposes.
Mr. Murdoch is particularizing a need for data. Other entities have the data, don’t talk about it, don’t explain what can and is done with those data, and reflexively throw a fog of obfuscation over these data. Mr. Murdoch is forcing a show down. He is getting older. His traditional business methods are becoming less reliable. He is fighting back.
This and the charging for content will be an interesting lab test and IQ test.
Stephen Arnold, August 9, 2009
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