So firstly the omnipresent Mr. Big of news publishing announces he is to begin charging for his newspaper’s online content. Then his company dramatically pulls the plug on their free The London Paper title.

It’s a huge about turn on the direction almost all media has been taking for the last few years. So is Rupert Murdoch wise or brave, foolish or foolhardy? More importantly can he, even with all his global expertise in print over decades, really know what he’s doing in a media industry struggling with the economics of giving everything away for nothing?

Of course not. He’s just reached a point where the losses are really rubbing him up the wrong way and is deciding to take some action on it because the alternative is looking really, really bleak for his financial model.

A Little Savvier

Word has it that Rupert doesn’t use a computer and can’t be contacted by email. He is certainly not a fan of digital, and this drastic move against the tide may prove to be his big mistake. The outcome is very far from certain, but to execute such a gamble, I’d prefer it if the man in charge was a little savvier with his RSS feeds.

There was a time when News International’s digital policies looked relatively visionary. The redesigned Times Online (albeit following The Guardian’s lead), and even the purchase of MySpace (before users realised it doesn’t actually work very well) seemed impressively committed to the game. While launching a freesheet in The London Paper showed an apparent desire to keep on the cutting edge of the new print market trends too. But these projects are now busy laying off staff just the same as at other, less well prepared media outlets. Throwing NI’s clout at the projects hasn’t made them better or more profitable than their analog or digital rivals. All is not well and charging for digital content looks like a fairly desperate about turn.

Forward-thinking net commentator Jeff Jarvis said in his column last week, “Newspapers have had 15 years since the launch of the internet browser to re-imagine and rebuild themselves for the reality of the post-Gutenberg age. But they didn’t. Now they are trying to reclaim old business models for a new media economy — a link economy, I call it, in which links give content value. Cut yourself off from links, behind pay walls, and you cut yourself off from the internet and its real value.”

Unfolding Story

Yes, quality newspaper journalism desperately needs to find ways to be funded sufficiently enough to survive, but the new medium still being forged online relies on access to content be as fast and easy as possible. Blocked pages, registration screens, credit card demands..? Alternatives are always a single, rapid click away.

It’s great to see Murdoch shifting this unfolding story so significantly, but I think he’s potentially lost his touch here. He’s going against the grain too strongly in a battle that for once is much bigger than his own publishing empire.

Are we watching the dawn of a new sustainable age of digital news journalism, or the violent death throes of an outdated media hierarchy? Whatever happens next, it’s going to be dramatic and of huge, lasting significance.

It’s all too inevitable that the coming of Google’s Street View to the UK would stir up ‘fury’ and ‘outrage’, even if most people in the country clearly think it’s an amazing development.

Privacy rights are well worth fighting for, but have the irate commentators really thought about what they are so up-in-arms about on this occasion? If they were paying attention to the advantages of digital media rather than automatically resisting it, they might see that having photos of totally public areas online is far, far down the scale of threats to our privacy. Censoring the taking of photos in public places should be more of a concern.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a group like Privacy International were at the cutting edge of the digital debate, acknowledging the central role of such technology to improving all of our lives and working to make sure its develops with a strong moral code. However today’s news that they are attempting to shut down street view only goes to show they are hopelessly out of touch.

The fuss over the few people/vehicles/dogs that can be identified misses the point too. They can simply be removed if requested. Web media works best when it is collaborative, therefore Google naturally relies on the input of its map users to improve its content all the time.

The irony is that only in such a connected, digital world can such fearful hot air be blown up into the sort of instant fuss that we’ve seen in the last few days. Do you think Google expected the severity of it? Probably. And there’s going to be plenty more hot air to come. It’s all part of the process of such huge cultural change. Ho hum, on we go.

Just wait until those people who are kicking up a stink right now get used to the shear usefulness of Street View on a mobile phone when they are trying to find their way to a job interview, buy a new house or make it to a dinner party on time. The conversation that night will be about how earth we ever lived without such a valuable free service.

A birthday bash for a 1-year-old I attended at the weekend revealed a great example of how people are creating their own personalised communications systems using free web tools.

The parents had no fewer than 3 laptops set up, all running Skype video connections so relatives in various parts of the world could join in the singing of ‘happy birthday’ to the little boy.

The grandparents in Malaysia were propped up on the sofa while an uncle and aunt in Manchester were on the windowsill. The connections were clunky and eventually went down, but as an indicator of the changes such devices are already making to our daily lives I thought this was a great effort.

Knowing that the gathered toddlers will be looking back on the photos one day and laughing at the ‘prehistoric’ technology we employed is a reminder of the pace of change that continues to effect us all. My own 1-year-old had already spent the morning making faces at her 92-year-old great grandmother on Skype, who was of course the far more bemused of the two.

It looks like future generation’s ‘can’t work the video recorder’ moment is going to come earlier and earlier.