From FT.com to Google: Ien Cheng's magnificent move

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Ien Cheng, the most senior digital executive at the Financial Times, is the leaving the company to take up an "unmissable" role at Google, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.

Jemima Kiss reported the breaking news first, on her MediaGuardian.co.uk article. Kiss cites Ien Cheng's email to FT.com staff:

"I will be leaving with pride in what we have accomplished together for FT.com mixed with sadness at parting with friends and colleagues. I remain as proud of and hopeful for the Financial Times in a digital age as ever. I've simply been offered an opportunity at Google that is, for me, unmissable."

Good Job, Jemima Kiss. I was moved reading Cheng's message in depth, because I have been thinking of future newspaper potentials rather pessimistically for days. I do not want to criticize Ien Cheng's move to Google. I suppose Cheng will do good for Google, and it will make FT.com better, if not exactly Google's effect.
I read Ien Cheng's interview with paidContent.UK.

WSJ a looming threat?: Some analysts, expecting Rupert Murdoch to slash WSJ’s cover price and drop online charges, have anticipated agressive competitive against the FT, but Cheng said: “Any publication that goes completely free significantly risks ending up with an undifferentiated volume. That’s not our model. The FT’s model is to have a uniquely high-end global business audience and that’s what we do have and deliver to our advertisers Revenue diversification is a good thing, as long as you’re maximising your growth on a number of fronts. We think this model can allow to have both advertising and subscription growth. It’s obvious that there’s a structural shift right now to online (advertising) - that’s not going to go away.”

Here Cheng told Robert Andrews on WSJ's strategic cut online charges, maintaining that FT.com's model is rather different from Rupert Murdoch's. The young man with vast intelligence on advertisement, Ien Cheng makes a remark here, asserting that a structual shift is going on. This shift makes Google more powerful because there seems to be no competitor has not yet entered this area: online advertising. It seems to me Ien Cheng had been aware of "unmissable" role at Google, for 6 months.
Here's another Ien Cheng interview with 24/7 Wall St. website:

Mr. Cheng had a response that might prove educational to others in the content business. He does not have to. Traffic to FT.com is growing despite the fact that a full online subscription requires a payment. FT.com believes that it can enjoy the best of both worlds. Mr. Murdoch may prove him wrong if the WSJ.com becomes an entirely free product. That still remains to be seen.

Besides, I would refer to WSJ in good condition after the October strategic slash. paidContent.org made an excellent report:

Murdoch has been on a full-tilt course to remake the Journal as a more general newspaper with a franchise in business news rather than a business newspaper that also covered other things. Robert Thomson (NYSE: TOC), the WSJ publisher who had editing oversight and is now the top editor officially―the title is interim but it appears to be indefinite―also gets the NYT treatment today as a man of mystery. He suggests describing him as “the head of content.” He disagrees with the notion that being general is antithetical:

Company's good condition (circulation gains) does not always imply a team with harmony, I suppose. How does Murdoch want to control newspapers? I do not have enough idea so far, but keep on following Murdoch and Cheng.
Hope this post made you come to with an idea in depth. Thank you.