londrum - 8:32 pm on Nov 14, 2009 (gmt 0)

google are getting a bit close to the edge when stories like this blow up.

like everyone says, google create nothing. they don't even create the traffic -- it's already there. all they do is channel it. that is pretty much all they do.

if they disappeared tonight, who is to say our traffic would suffer? i mean, really, would it even drop at all? people would just use other engines. the world wouldn't suddenly stop surfing the net because google.com has gone down.

when stories like this blow up people begin to realise that google is really just a big traffic-channeller -- and they seem to be channelling more and more of it in their own direction.

and as a result people like murdoch threaten to pull their content -- because they don't feel that they're getting a decent return on their 'investment' of handing over their content everyday.

murdoch is pulling a brick out the bottom of google's wall here. when google can't get access to murdoch's content, then their own content will inevitably suffer (because it's the same). and they'll get less visitors and start sending less traffic. and then people will start to wonder about the silliness of giving up their expensively-produced content to a traffic channeller that doesn't pump the goods.

this is a bigger deal for google than murdoch, with potentially worse results. if murdoch can get more people to jump on his float then google will have to come up with some kind of a deal to keep them sweet.