Google vs. Murdoch – Round II.
We also asked people who they think has the more positive (or less negative) influence on people’s lives in Britain today? Google triumphed with 46% preferring its influence, against 15% preferring the influence of Rupert Murdoch and his companies.
Most people seem happy with this arrangement, as 53% said they would rather that Google had more influence, with only 10% backing Murdoch. Perhaps the most interesting result was that 59% thought that in ten years times Google and its companies would be more influential than Mr. Murdoch and his companies (10%).
The Knowledge Gap
There is another dimension to these results, however. We asked the public which companies Google and Murdoch own. Over half the respondents know Murdoch owns BSkyB (58%) and The Sun (54%), but only 25% are aware that he owns The Times.
Even fewer people know about Google’s acquisitions. Only 27% know Google own YouTube, and 13% that it owns Blogger.com (as many as think it owns Facebook, which it does not). Ironically, in spite of Murdoch’s high-profile purchase of MySpace, more than twice as many people think Google owns it.
Google or Murdoch – Who is more influential?
On Monday night we had a YouGovStone Debate on who was most influential: Google or the Murdoch empire? I conducted a poll in advance, which asked the population directly. By nearly two-to-one, people thought Murdoch. But when asked to predict how it would be in 10 years, six-to-one people said Google would be the most influential.
They also much preferred the influence of Google, although (as Brent Hoberman pointed out in the debate), they were probably not thinking too much about the different kinds of influence: Murdoch seeking direct influence through content, Google building up huge potential influence through gathering vast amounts of information, and having the overwhelming power to control (or, as Peter Barron insisted, “organise”) that information.
Our poll showed that people agreed with the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal when he said that Google News hurts online journalism by discouraging brand loyalty – but just as many agreed with Google’s response that its search engine and aggregator helps publishers by driving traffic to them.
The two views are not necessarily contradictory. Finally, people were split on which kind of company would have the most influence in the future, with 39 per cent saying it would be sites that provide their own original content, and 40 per cent saying it would be sites that search and aggregate.
About
-
Recent Comments
PoliticsHome GreenBox- AA warns Darling to halt petrol duty hike, prices to soar March 15, 2010
- Parties war over Unite funding of the Labour party March 15, 2010
- YouGov/Sun: Con 37% (0), Lab 32% (-1), Lib Dem 21% (+4) March 15, 2010
- Tomorrow's front pages as they come in March 15, 2010
- PM special adviser Michael Dugher selected for Barnsley East March 15, 2010
- Cooper warns unemployment set to continue rising March 15, 2010
- Macrory: Daily Express/Opinium: Cons 39 (+2) Lab 28 (-2) LD 16 (-) March 15, 2010
- ICM/Guardian: Conservatives 40% (+3), Labour 31% (+1), Lib Dems 20% (n/c). March 15, 2010
- European Commission: Britain needs to do more to cut deficit March 15, 2010
- Conservatives preparing to outline cuts after budget - BBC March 15, 2010
