[WikiEN-l] BBC blog on WSJ study

[William Pietri]

Charles Matthews wrote:
> Anyone else feel that Mr. Murdoch's little list beginning "1. Trash 
> Google rather than actually noindex News Corp's pages" has Wikipedia as 
> alternate new source somewhere on it?
>   

Anything's possible, but I doubt it.

Murdoch's flaws are surely numerous but his business acumen is 
undeniable. Maybe he's got some dark plot that I haven't fathomed, but I 
don't think Wikipedia turf is very appealing from a commercial 
perspective. Sure, we serve a lot of pageviews, but that's about it. 
Except for particular niches, reference material has never been all that 
profitable. It's expensive to create, people have high standards, 
there's rarely an urgent need, and a competitive advantage is hard to 
defend.

If Wikinews were more successful, we might have more cause to be 
worried, but until we start scooping the WSJ or Fox News on a regular 
basis, I think we can rest easy about Murdoch, et al.

William