Google, Murdoch and the Mandy Rice Davies play

Mandy Rice Davies was an "escort" caught in the Profumo scandal in 1960's Britain, where it seemed that the Government, the Russian spies and some of the UK's movers and shakers were sleeping with the same women at the same time. Bad for state secrets, don'tcha know. Anyway, one society mover turned out to be a pimp as well:

While giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, charged with living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies, the latter made a quip for which she is now best remembered. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?".[5]

"Well, he would, wouldn't he" has entered the British lexicon to describe that sort of "duh" event. And so it seems when I read about News International's Rupert Murdoch and Google's Eric Schmidt.

News International wants its customers to pay for news, and made this clear a few weeks ago - Mr Schmidt has now responded and said Oh No, it must be Free:

Schmidt was responding to an announcement by News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch that he could start charging for content online. As Reuters notes:

"In general these models have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity," he said.

To paraphrase - well they would, wouldn't they. Those are the cornerstones of their respective business models.Where they both seem to agree though is in the future of niche information:

"Eric Schmidt said he could, however, imagine niche providers of content such as business news succeeding in this area."

And Mr Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal..............