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“If someone can build multibillion-dollar businesses out of keywords, we can build multihundred-million businesses out of headlines.”

Wow, what a truly epic misunderstanding of what search engines do.

The thinking goes: Google is just a business built out of keywords. They come up with the best keywords, and we fork over cash to them for that. AP has got some slick headlines which are even better than keywords, because they have more words. Also, we produce them, not steal them from other people like Google, which must be an even better business!

I also have to say, the whole rights-managed link framework sounds like the biggest pie-in-the-sky project I've ever heard. Some consultant really sold them on something that is going to be quite lucrative (for the consultant obviously).




The thing is, there already is a Google for news. It's called Google News.

...and it already pays AP license fees to use their content. What, exactly, do they thing this new program is going to accomplish?


> Some consultant really sold them on something that is going to be quite lucrative (for the consultant obviously)

There are a lot of managers and high-placed people who have no understanding of computers, but are impressed by pretty diagrams. And many consulting firms exist to part them from their money.




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