NewsCorp Needs To Rethink Their Web Business

Rather than take a page from others in the let’s bash NewsCorp because the company doesn’t get it, let’s look at this with some intelligence. First of all, if NewsCorp was such a failure, it would have died a long time ago. Where they are hitting a wall is in the complete and total lack of understanding of how things are evolving in the online space. Worse, they are not showing interest in adapting their business models.

Old school thought in situations such as they are facing today is to raise prices and charge for stuff they are giving away for free. Marvouls idea, especially if the products being increased are targeting those who do not know how to access the free alternatives. Sadly, because NewsCorp is thinking about the online space…they had darn well better have some fantastic, exclusive and unduplicatable stuff to offer.

At the end of the day, MySpace is turning into a Microsoft where it copies instead of innovates, charging web goers for info they can get elsewhere is going to bite NewsCorp hard despite the belief that old media rules still apply. Again, I am not saying that Micro-payments will automatically fail…but without some damned good arguments as to why people should choose this route, NewsCorp’s online business is going to find itself in a world of hurt in the months to come.