TECHPULSE To pay wall or not to pay wall. That is the question Rupert Murdoch has answered recently with a finger shown to the Internet's biggest search engine Google.

The News Corp mogul has threatened to shut out Google from indexing the online content of his media organizations by putting up a pay wall and charge people for reading their stories on the Web.

Murdoch's bluster against Google in a recent interview with Sky News Australia was immediately followed several days later by the announcement that News Corp was "ready to block Google's access to its sites soon."

The Telegraph.co.uk site reported that News Corp chief digital officer Jonathan Miller had told the Monaco Media Forum on Friday that News Corp would lead the media industry in this direction.

That was something to perk up newshounds who sensed blood. Soon enough everyone is buzzing that Murdoch's global media empire has raised the war cry and is ready to strike back.

Waves of reaction

It will be interesting to know who else will join the "Block Google" movement under the flapping banner of Murdoch's Army.
In the Telegraph report, Miller told the forum: "We will lead. There is a pent up need for this. There has to be a resolution for the free versus pay debate otherwise we cannot afford to pay for things like news bureaus in Kabul."

Murdoch's global media empire stretches from Australia to the United Kingdom and the United States. He owns a wide range of newspapers around the world from the highbrow Wall Street Journal to the saucy mass-market UK tabloid The Sun.

In the interview with Sky News, which is part of the News Corp family, Murdoch created waves of reactions over his remarks to make his media content invisible to users on the search engine once his paid content strategy is put in place.

People know that he has been blustering for months this year about making users pay for online content but this is the first time Murdoch actually said it out loud in the interview that he is slamming the door on Google.

Sky News political editor David Speer asked him who were the plagiarists he was referring to and Murdoch replied: "The people who just simply pick up everything and run with it, steal our stories, just take them without payment. There's Google, there's Microsoft, there's Ask.com, there's a whole lot of people."

The media mogul also claimed that readers who visit News Corp sites via search offer little value to advertisers. He would rather have fewer people coming to his media websites but paying.

The story went viral on the Internet with the micro-blogging site Twitter having a field day as people tweeted about the Murdoch bombshell.

Should people take the 78-year-old News Corp chief executive seriously?

Many New Media experts are not convinced that Murdoch will pull it off. They say that despite the man's steadfastness to block the Google bots from indexing his media websites, there is a downside to his intention.

Detractors are sceptical. They argue that Murdoch's "retreat to defensible, higher value positions" will result in smaller audiences for his news network.

Web analysts say it's hard to imagine why millions of people would want to pay for online news when most could get it for free. The risk is that making people pay for content may alienate them and deter advertisers. Web users have become used to free content.

Murdoch's news network is not the only source of information on the Internet. The news landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade, and so have people's news habits.

Persuading millions of web users to pay for news online is likely to be a tall order, according to analysts. These people have a choice on the Internet and News Corp's content need not be it.

Where advertisers are concerned, is it not the norm for them to reach out to the widest audience? Will it be enough for News Corp to find advertisers who will pay for their ads to be viewed by much smaller audiences?

And what has Google got to say in response to the Murdoch bombshell? Will the Mountain View seach engine giant blink?
The Telegraph.co.uk site also reported that Google has clarified that it will not index publishers against their wishes.

Move may fall flat

Perhaps, the Wall Street Journal's success to some extent has encouraged Murdoch to expand his plans to his other news outlets. And also for News Corp to head a united front that includes other news organizations.

Miller had told the forum that News Corp know what they are in for, adding that The Times and The Sun newspapers in the UK could survive both economically and audience-wise without Google driving web traffic to their sites. Some other people might beg to differ on that point. Web users understand that traffic is the lifeblood of websites.

Some other web analysts are sceptical of a united front. They say that even if News Corp do start charging and other media groups follow suit, the movement may look powerful but it will probably fall flat. By joining the "no-index brigade", other news organizations might end up as out-of-sight, out-of-mind entities.

Frank Reed, writing at the popular Marketing Pilgrim blog, commented wryly in his post: "Looks to me like this whole thing is just keeping News Corp in the news because there may not be any real news here since there is no plan and no definition coupled with vague threats and dates of even more vague threats."

* Mark Khoo writes about the blogging experience and other Internet issues. He blogs at TheNextPost.com  and Markkscript.Posterous.com.