Very interesting. News Corp is developing a new publication (newspaper) exclusively for the Apple iPad. No print version and no website. They are hiring journalists for this new publication. We all know print media is taking a beating by the internet and most publications are trying to figure out how make the publication coexist with a website. News Corp is taking a big leap by creating a iPad only publication. I think publishers need to think like this so they can find the new channels for distributing news that would have a revenue stream associated to them. It might not work, but credit for trying something different.
Would you buy a iPad only publication? What would this publication need so you would buy?
News Corp is taking the iPad very seriously as a new way to distribute the news. The media giant is taking it so seriously that it is developing a new publication called the Daily which will only be available on the iPad (no print edition, no Website). News Corp is hiring 100 journalists for this iPad newspaper and is reportedly working with engineers on loan from Apple to make it shine.
The last time a big media company hired so many journalists to launched a splashy new publication was Conde Nast’s Portfolio magazine, which was more of a print venture and didn’t survive. I hope the Daily fares better and really takes this opportunity to rethink how news is presented to readers without any of the limitations of print. For one thing, based on who is getting hired for this project, it looks like the Daily will be heavy on video, interactive graphics, and rich photos. Nothing too startling there. Pretty much every newspaper and magazine edition on the iPad is going in that direction. With all the hype that is brewing around the project, hopefully it will push the envelope beyond those obvious iPad features.
But the fact that News Corp. is putting so many resources into this project raises a basic question that has yet to be answered satisfactorily: What should an iPad newspaper look like?
Well, I am not sure it should look like a newspaper at all. The nice thing about starting from scratch is that the Daily won’t have to feel familiar in the same way that an iPad app for the Wall Street Journal or New York Times does. I fear that even the Daily will be too parochial, showing only news and content produced by its staff. But people no longer limit their news consumption to one publication, even within a single reading session.
From a reader’s perspective, the optimal iPad newspaper should be three things:
* Social: It should show you what your friends and the people you trust are reading and passing around, both within that publication and elsewhere on the Web.
* Realtime: News breaks every second, and publications need to be as realtime as possible to keep up. A “daily” already sounds too slow.
* Local: The device knows where you are and should serve up news and information accordingly, including, weather, local news and reviews.
In other words, it should look a lot more like Flipboard or Pulse, integrating news from people’s Twitter and Facebook feeds. I will be surprised if the Daily follows any of these three tenets. The purpose the iPad-only publication seems to be to isolate readers in the iPad so they have to pay for it. But even if that is the case, it won’t succeed unless it embraces the rest of the Web.
FAIL! Apple’s use of low wage workers in terrible conditions in China to make their Iphones showed me their decision to seek profits over being a socially responsible Corporation and this deal with the devil of NewsCorp is another reason why I am choosing to go with Android, Google and other products over Apple products.
What’s wrong with this deal is that Fox and Rupert Murdoch run a fake news organization that distorts the news and stokes fear and anger in America all to get people to vote against their own financial interests. The people on the Fox “News” Network as News Readers are themselves Republican Candidates for high office including the Presidency! This is NOT the future of media if people who love Democracy and the integrity of the Free Press have anything to do with it. JOBS
Joe valid discussion points, but off topic… is the effort of creating a tablet only publication something that could succeed? Do other media outlets need to be aggressive like this? Is this what the print world needs to be doing to survive? Would you buy it? What would it need so you would buy.
Ok Michael those are all great questions though not how I read your initial post title of “will it work and what should it look like”. I mean to say that I thought it Should Not work and I don’t care what it looks like. Hopefully thats more on point. Should other media outlets be aggressive in creating tabloid versions for tablets? Yes I think so! Should Jobs go out of his way to work with a disreputable organization like Newscorp to prove the viability of the concept? Hell no!
I know it is out of fashion right now, but I prefer more beef on my client. My preference is for a meaty desktop over a laptop (high-end graphics cards in particular need the fans and cooling a laptop can’t provide). I’m not convinced server-side graphic renderings for multi-user games is serviceable at this time either. And, I get more flexibility if I can control graphic throughput on the client anyway.
If I most go mobile, I want a kick-butt laptop over any tablet or phone. If I can’t lug a laptop, then I just want quick news over the web, email and something like FB, which my phone provides quicker and cheaper than the iPhone.
Apple caters to those who love convenience and style above all. I’ve never prioritized those two features. Instead, I want power, flexibility, economy and performance. I’ll lug something one pound heavier to get that on a laptop, I’ll do the extra work to get a superior (and higher quality) media solution than iTunes, I’ll sacrifice portability for high-end graphics, I prefer the additional functionality and power of Oracle to MySQL (if I can afford it).
I see a slow recursion back to thin clients and server-heavy, federalized systems. I am not so sure, that’s the final destination for technology. It makes computing convenient to a degree, and certainly simpler, but I see serious drawbacks to flexibility, functionality and I certainly see the potential of a powerful client being squandered along the way. I guess, because I rode the tide of client-server architecture I have a heavy bias towards it, but this idea that all apps must be served over a web browser, that all systems should assume the client they serve is thin and weak, isn’t a particularly thrilling vision of the future.
I look towards a more innovative company, taking Apple to task. A company less committed to style and simplicity and more focused on actual innovation and cutting-edge ideas.