iPad media apps: Stealthed hobbits thwart Google's flaming Eye • The Register

Really interesting article about how the nascent tablet media applications market prevents web crawling hoarders from knowing what we are reading.

Imagine a Facebook app, a LinkedIn app, and a web world of fleeing newspaper sites as they transform into newspaper tablet apps and vanish from the Google radar. Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search sites and news aggregation sites will get the equivalent of macular degeneration; their web field of view will constrict more and more, affecting their revenue and business models from the media indexing point of view.

So this could be the start of a balkanization of web media and advertising (at very least) with premium information space going to the tablet-based apps. Really interesting times...and maybe a glimmer of hope for the 4th Estate.

iPad media apps: Stealthed hobbits thwart Google's flaming Eye • The Register