Well whaddya know. Two weeks after we wrote about Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis’s suggestion that Microsoft and News Corporation should do a search deal that freezes out Google (Murdoch and Calacanis hatch separate plans to shut out Google)… it’s been revealed that Microsoft and Murdoch’s News Corporation are in talks about just such a deal.
Rupert Murdoch made no mention of any such exclusivity deal to index News Corp.’s content when he flagged his preparedness to prevent Google from indexing his content during a sabre-rattling interview with Sky News Australia earlier this month. However, the suggestion by Calacanis and others that such a deal would be deeply attractive to Microsoft and an additional revenue stream for Murdoch’s flagging newspaper empire has proved prescient.
Calacanis did suggest that an exclusive indexing deal with Microsoft’s Bing search engine would have more clout if it included content from the world’s top ten media companies. Alone, News Corp. would be erecting a toll booth in the middle of an ocean of free content.
While Murdoch’s rivals might be rubbing their hands at the prospect, Microsoft has absolutely nothing to lose. Stay tuned.
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