Okay, I'm missing definitely missing something here. The Murdoch publishing empire is apparently thinking of paying Microsoft for--as I understand it--selective search engine optimization. In other words, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, etc. will graciously allow Redmond to pay them for what other media outlets will throw ridiculous sums of money at SEO snake-oil salesman to get.
Obviously, Mr. Murdoch knows a thing or three about packaging content, and the related Financial Times blog post by John Gapper makes the excellent point that traffic from paid subscribers trumps any random pair of eyeballs that the Google cat dragged in. Also, Bing isn't DOA as some predicted it would be, even without Microsoft baking it into every copy of IE in the same fashion that the Google toolbar is baked into Firefox and Opera.
But--and I'm just running with gut feeling here--partnering with a company that's has clearly lost its edge to shore up a business model that's clearly on the ropes doesn't sound like the smartest decision I've heard. IMO, it's like the dinosaurs deciding to form a commune after the meteor's already hit.
