默多克拒绝谷歌转投微软怀抱

Rupert Murdoch's effort to change the economics of the internet by stopping Google linking to stories in his newspapers looks, at first glance, like an act of self-destruction. That is how News Corp's negotiations on a deal to favour Microsoft's search engine Bing instead is viewed by many rivals and technology experts.
鲁珀特．默多克试图通过阻止谷歌链接旗下报纸的内容，以改变互联网经济的版图。此举乍一看是个自我毁灭行为。对于新闻集团与微软洽谈，转而支持后者的搜索引擎必应，许多同行和技术专家都抱着这样的想法。

On closer inspection, however, Mr Murdoch's initiative has an intriguing logic for other media groups facing the market power of Google. It may not achieve his desired result but it indicates how little he has to lose in revenue terms by experimenting.
但细究起来，对于其它在谷歌市场强势下生存的媒体集团来说，默多克此举具有耐人寻味的合理之处。这么做也许无法取得他想要的结果，但它表明，就收入来说，尝试一下对他并没什么损失。

Most publishers, including newspapers, have so far made their stories available free online. Their strategy has been to make up for lost revenues from print subscriptions by gaining larger audiences online. The Guardian newspaper, for example, now reaches 30m unique users a month.
包括报纸在内的大部分出版商如今都在网上免费提供内容。他们的策略是，通过获得更庞大的网络受众，弥补发行订阅方面的收入损失。譬如，如今每月的“单独用户”数量已经达到3000万。

Part of the strategy has been to achieve high rankings on Google and news aggregators so that people are drawn to them. This is what Jeff Jarvis, a professor at City University of New York, commends as “the link economy”.
一种常用策略是，通过在谷歌和新闻聚合器上获得更靠前的排序，来吸引人们阅读。这正是纽约市立大学教授杰夫．贾维斯(Jeff Jarvis)所所说的“链接经济”。

Newspapers, however, face the painful reality that, while traffic from search engines is valuable in marketing terms, it has not produced the revenue for which they hoped. Online advertising rates are falling because of the mass of content on the web, and advertisers do not reward random clicks.
然而，报业面临一个痛苦的现实：虽然搜索引擎带来的流量对于营销而言很有价值，但却没有带来他们期盼的真实收入。由于网上内容庞杂，加上广告商不会为随机点击付费，网络广告费率正在持续下降。

Some 23 per cent of traffic to the online Wall Street Journal, Mr Murdoch's flagship property, comes through Google and yet it probably brings in the low millions of dollars of advertising revenue. Mr Murdoch, having considered this financial reality, hopes that Microsoft will offer more.
默多克的旗舰报纸《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)网站约23%的流量，是通过谷歌吸引来的，但这部分流量大概只带来了少于500万美元的广告收入。考虑到这一财务现状，默多克寄希望于微软能够提供更高的报酬。

His battle is part of a bigger contest over the future of newspapers online. Only the Journal and the Financial Times have so far managed to charge their readers online, although the New York Times is again considering it, and The Times is in the forefront of Mr Murdoch's efforts to charge.
默多克的这场战斗，是围绕报纸前景的更广泛斗争的一部分。目前只有《华尔街日报》和英国《金融时报》实现了对在线内容收费。《纽约时报》(New York Times)正重新考虑这一模式，而《泰晤士报》(The Times)则是默多克在线收费计划的排头兵。

News is far from the online form of content that draws people to use search engines, so Microsoft is in a stronger bargaining position than News Corp. Yet even Mr Murdoch's rivals should welcome his attempt to shake things up.
新闻并不是最能吸引人们使用搜索引擎的在线内容。因此，比起新闻集团，微软更有讨价还价的底气。不过，就算是默多克的竞争对手，也应欢迎他这番试图改变现状的举动。

No one can predict what combination of subscription revenues and advertising publishers will be able to attract, and how many of them will survive the digital shake-out. It is clear, however, that they cannot rely on Google alone for their salvation.
没有人能够预言，通过搜索引擎，出版商能获得怎样的订阅收入和广告收入的组合，以及他们中有多少能够在这场数字革命中幸存下来。但是，他们显然不能单纯依靠谷歌这个救星。