Telegraph versus Google: the key debate from Greenslade

Telegraph versus Google: the key debate from Greenslade

Excellent debate being driven by Greenslade on the Guardians website.

The Telegraph have stuck their heads over the parapit and dared to say that all is not great with Google and of course have got the advocates of free content jumping all over them.

Of course all web publishers want traffic driven from aggreagtors, social networking sites etc, but the bottom line is a balance has got to be struck. Media owners are not charities and somewhere commercial reality has to come into play. Does the extra traffic driven generate enough additional adverting revenue to offset the devaluing of original content?

Beyond this, there is the whole issue of news as a commodity. It's surely OK for the likes of Google to give this away as it has little originality and hence little value, but where media owners come to the fore is in two key areas:
1. as aggregators of content who as a result steer and recommend what their readers should find interesting
2. based on their columnists and editors whose views the readers value.

As always, the answer is probably in balance. Slamming the door and bolting it will lose great value that Google et al can add, but leaving the door swinging in the wind will surely harm the media owner model - and what will fill the void then?