The Guardian reports that Rupert Murdoch is planning the release of an ebook reader. Here’s his comment when asked about the Kindle…

“I can assure you, we will not be sending our content rights to the fine people who created the Kindle,” he said. “We will control the prices for our content, and we will control the relationship with our customers.”

Control? Seriously? Doesn’t he read his own newspapers? Big corporations are so worried about losing control over their brands and content. They try to control the delivery and interaction while at the very same time consumers are becoming more invested in brands that reward participation.

Murdoch says, “The current days of the internet will soon be over” and yet he’s still making the same noises the dying newspaper industry has been making for years. Their conventional wisdom is to create a single blockbuster story and distribute it to millions of people. The web no longer works like that. We’re all participating in millions of separate and unique conversations that are not blockbusters but rather a series micro-exchanges. Now that’s a story worth writing about.

Some of my best friends are newspaper men/women but if they continue to sing this tune they are all headed the way of the Dodo.