Undiscoverable = undiscovered?
If you are not engaged in your business you will not be in business and all business is about conversations. You might cynically think that Rupert Murdoch sledging Google is simply good business, look at the profile of the last couple of days – easy to get if you own a lot of media.
The thing I dont get is if your business is news you need to be in the news, retreating behind a pay wall and making your content “undiscoverable” cannot make much sense.
I am no CEO expert but I believe it is possible to not allow Google index your content, but why would you want to?. What the industry has failed to do is to find any additional value propositions to develop new income streams while clicks grow yet subscriptions and purchases fall.
It’s a bit like the reaction in the UK to the BBC expanding its reach to cover local news and provide video last year, they wanted to do it because no one else had and someone could or should. So the BBC got blocked and no one did anything, why all it would have done was created a bigger market for local news.
If the spat is really about advertising revenue, and it probably is, round one to Mr. Murdoch, I bet he gets a sweeter deal!