Scott Karp has this excellent post today in which he highlights an overwhelming problem plaguing the Internet: news overkill. He uses as a case in point the recent, insane and largely redundant flood of news about Microsoft's decision to abandon its buyout bid for Yahoo.
Google News is tracking 2,000 stories about the high-profile tent-folding and that, presumably, doesn't even include the thousands of bloggers who felt obligated to cover this (fundamentally predictable -- more on that below) development. Scott sums it up: "So while there's more content on the web, there may be less news."
I couldn't agree more and I hesitate to even write this post because I don't want to add to the growing level of news noise. Lately it seems that every publication and blog feels obligated to chime in on the developments of the day, to the point that it's becoming almost impossible for me to find original content anymore.
Not that original content doesn't exist but that it's hard to find when I have to sift through 2,000 articles that on the surface seem the same. As Scott puts it, each version of a story "reduces that marginal economic value of all the others."
Sure, we all have something to say and I sometimes fail to restrain myself from weighing in on a subject. But lately I've made a concerted effort to not write about the hot topics because I don't want to contribute to the content pollution exemplified by the incredible overkill coverage of this M&A disaster.
As Scott advises all journalists and bloggers: "Don’t contribute to the commodification of news on the web."
As an aside, the whole Microsoft-Yahoo episode was truly an intense waste of journalistic resources even if it made for great theater. Not only would a merger of the two companies have yielded little in the way of innovation, but also the outcome seemed fated almost from the outset. Back in February I wrote:
Microsoft, then, might be Yahoo!'s last best chance to get out of its declining business before it's too late. The worst-case scenario for Yahoo! now: no other bidder comes along and Microsoft doesn't up the offer enough for Yahoo! to save face. If Microsoft decides that a brutal shareholder fight isn't worth it (one very real possibility according to the executive leading Microsoft's hostile bid), then Yahoo! will be left alone to face a future of dwindling revenues, profits and relevance.
At that point, a $44.6 billion offer would, in retrospect, look pretty good to Yahoo! and its shareholders and they might seek to get a buyout deal going again. But like home owners that price their houses too high for sale, Yahoo! might end up "chasing the bottom" and ironically wind up with far less than the company is truly worth, an outcome that Yahoo! claims it is avoiding by rejecting Microsoft's bid.
Sure enough, that's what has happened. Microsoft walked away from a deal and now Yahoo wishes it hadn't held out for more because now it will likely end up with far less.
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:05 AM|Comments(0)
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