Badda Bing: Microsoft woos newspapers by funding their stick to beat Google

This is yet more evidence that Microsoft still tragically misunderstands the web. How can they still be so far behind the curve? People don't search for news articles--they search for information (e.g. Wikipedia, local doctors, vendors, etc.) and for sites like Facebook (rather than typing out the URL). Colluding with a moribund print media industry will buy them nothing.

The author seems not to understand that robots.txt <i>is</i> granular, and that Google even honors the X-Robots 'header' version.<p>ACAP is pointless, or at least not the big deal improvement these guys want it to be.

Otherwise known as prolonging the death of an industry that refuses to innovate. How appropriate.

This is a huge mistake on Microsoft's part.<p>The newspaper industry in the US is in an accelerating, long-term decline. Circulation has been steeply dropping since about 1993. And ad revenue, a newspaper's primary source of revenue, has been dropping like a rock. It's already half of what it was only 5 years ago. Even if the current trends improve a bit, the newspaper industry will be somewhere around 10% to 3% its current size a decade from now. Though given the accelerating decline in ad revenue it's possible that this process could proceed much more rapidly.<p>Getting an exclusive right to content from a dying industry is the definition of a bad business move.

I'm kind of embarrassed by the hackjob of an image attached to that article. Isn't TechCrunch supposed to be this kickass tech news outlet? That graphic is all the worst parts of "political cartoons," but without even a compelling illustration to go with it.