Stone urges Murdoch to rethink paywall plans

Posted by Helena Humphrey on November 20, 2009 at 11:42 AM

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, said that he would "love to see what happens" if Rupert Murdoch goes ahead with his plans to block News International titles from Google's search index and implement his proposed paywall. Speaking at an event organised by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) in London, Stone described the media mogul's schemes as futile and likened them to an attempt at putting "the genie back in the bottle", the Guardian reported.

In light of Murdoch's recent accusations that Google and other web companies are "stealing" content from his titles, Stone responded that the news chief should instead be "looking at it as an opportunity to do something radically different and find out how to make a ton of money out of being radically open rather than some money by being ridiculously closed".

Stone added that rapid speed with which technology is changing and progressing means that Murdoch's plan was likely to "fail fast". Reid Hoffman, co-founder of networking site LinkedIn, shared Stone's sentiments: "I am sure that during the transition from horses to automobiles there were some people bemoaning the loss of horse transport."

Although Stone admits that he remains uncertain for the future of traditional media, he is optimistic regarding the future of his micro-blogging site, valued at more than $1bn last month, which is now looking to push revenues in order to make a profit. Unveiling new plans to update the site, Stone also assured audiences that "Twitter will always be free to everyone but you will be able to pay for an additional layer of access to learn more about your Twitter account."

Having recently announced search deals with both Google and Microsoft's Bing, rumours of a take-over were in the air. These were quashed for the time being however, as Stone insisted that a sale " was never something we were interested in talking about".

"One of the things we are seeking to do as we have already done with Myspace as we have done with LinkedIn, as we have done with AOL, as we have done with Google, as we have done with Bing, is to share our data and form partnerships that are long standing... Twitter wants to work with social networks, with mobile networks, with TV networks with search engines... we want to put a little Twitter in everything", said Stone.

Source: Guardian