Just Like It Now Gets The Internet, News Corp. Now Gets Mobile, Too

Overhype

from the get-this dept

A lot of people said that News Corporation’s purchase of MySpace was a sign that the company now “gets” the internet — although that’s far from certain. The company is today on the receiving end of a glowing story in The New York Times, discussing how the company’s making such a bold move by starting a site to sell mobile content. The company’s done quite a PR job, somehow leading the Times reporter to believe that this effort is somehow noteworthy, mostly because it’s coming from a big-media company (anybody remember the catastrophic failure that was Vizzavi?). Apparently the new venture, called Mobizzo, is a really big deal because News Corp. is “bypassing the exclusive arrangements common with wireless phone companies” — it may be bypassing carrier portal placement, sure, but it’s billing for its services through carriers, whereby consumers pay for the content they download on their mobile-phone bill, and the carrier takes a cut and passes the rest on to the content provider — just like plenty of other content providers already do. All News Corp. has done is throw its hat into what’s a quickly imploding market, and to suggest that this is somehow a big deal, or represents some great understanding of the mobile space, is laughable. If any plaudits are deserved, they should go to the News Corp. PR team for once again getting the company’s late-arriving me-too efforts portrayed as revolutionary.