If Murdoch Was Dead, He'd Be Rolling In His Grave

Free Advertising for the Competition

Ever hear of Outbrain? Me neither.

The company bills itself as the "world's largest and most trusted content discovery platform." Who knew?

One way it does that is by giving websites, such as those for newspapers, the ability to "install our technology to offer recommendations and help your audience discover more content on your site that is interesting to them." As important: "Add a new revenue stream by offering recommendations to high-quality third-party content on other sites."

Sounds promising, right? Especially for newspapers desperate to wring every list dollar out of digital at a time when print and circulation still accounts for 75-85 percent of revenues. But it appears Outbrain's brain needs to think a little harder.

On one website, there's a link to two New York Times stories, one headlined "Gauging Stephen Colbert as a 'Late Show' Host," and "CBS Works to Minimize Drama After a Dramatic Departure on 'The Good Wife.'"

So far, so good. Only one thing. Both stories appear at the bottom of an item about Colbert on, wait for it, the New York Post website.

Fair dinkum, as ol' Rupe would say, though I suspect he might also have some juicier epithets in his arsenal.

Outbrain may be installed on more than 100,000 blogs and websites where it offers more than 150 billion content recommendations a month. But here are two that don't add up, which is the price you pay when you have bots populating your website instead of people.

Then again, if the Post is actually getting a few bucks by offering this "high-quality third-party content," then maybe the Murdochians can swallow hard and pocket the cash. At least it's not the Daily News.

Yet.