Today a new app went on sale for the iPad. It’s called The Daily and is a newspaper. Sort of. The brainchild of Rupert Murdoch of News Corp, this app is basically a daily newspaper, but with HD video, high rez pics and a new business model.
It costs about 99 cents a week and is subscription based, so you don’t have to buy each issue.
So what are the implications of this?
- This does something Mr. Murdoch as wanted to do for a while which was get people to pay for news they can get for free elsewhere.
- It will have lots of exclusing content I am sure, which will be very hard to link to on a blog for example.
- Apple is a supporter of this because they are a big believer in closed systems.
- I am not sure how it will go over because many people these days are used to getting several different sources for news. This magazine is only one source.
(cc) Remy Saglier - Doubleray
Overall the trend lately has been for locking up content into closed systems. Comcast has merged/bought NBC and Universal. In one huge company now there is everything you need to create, market, and distribute online content. You can lock it up and make it either exclusing or at least cheaper to your customers.
We might actually be looking at a situation in a few years where your decision on cable TV provider will be based in part on who has your favorite show available. Is that crazy? I think that’s what all these companies like Apple are trying to do. Take something ubiquitous (digital content) and make it rare again.
I’m not sure this will work. Watch Netflix. If they get crushed, then closed systems are the way things will go. (for a while)
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Rupert Murdoch: “New Times, Demand New Journalism”
New online newspaper app
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Today, Rupert Murdoch is introducing The Daily, his foray into an iPad-only newspaper. “New times demand new journalism,” he says.
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Murdoch notes that a growing population of news consumers no longer read print or even watch TV.
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A new edition will come out every day, with updates throughout the day. it will feature a carousel navigation that looks like Coverflow, an dinclude video and 360-degree photographs.
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Since there are no trucks and no printing costs, The Daily will cost 14 cents a day or about $1 a week.
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Education Stormfront 
I’m with you, it looks like a failing model to me. The only way closed systems will work if all of the open content disappears, or becomes too expensive to publish because of restrictive ISPs.
By: dwees on February 3, 2011
at 12:20 am
You are exactly right dwees! I think the net has shown that closed systems can’t change fast enough to keep up with open innovation. They also tend to lock themselves into certain ways of doing things, leaving themselves open to disruptive changes.
Thanks for posting!
By: crudbasher on February 3, 2011
at 1:58 pm
History has shown that closed systems, while profitable is the short term, are unsustainable in the long run. That doesn’t help make them less annoying, but at least it offers a glimmer of hope for the distant future.
By: Chris on February 3, 2011
at 10:24 am
I agree Chris. Doesn’t this feel like a huge step backwards? Won’t regular web users feel like this too? “What do you mean I can’t access that other site because it’s on a different network?”
Thanks for commenting!!
By: crudbasher on February 3, 2011
at 2:00 pm
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dr Robert Schertzer, Andrew Barras. Andrew Barras said: New Post: "The Daily" – Glimpse of the Future? http://bit.ly/g9pJzq #edchat #edtech #ipad […]
By: Tweets that mention “The Daily” – Glimpse of the Future? « Education Stormfront -- Topsy.com on February 3, 2011
at 5:41 pm
I tend to think that these types of “closed” systems are targeted toward people who are too lazy (or not well informed enough) to aggregate their own free news. One thing that I thought was interesting is that they built in a way to share articles with people who didn’t subscribe. If you click on a shared link you can read that article for free.
By: ktenkely on February 4, 2011
at 12:32 am
I wonder how big the market is of people who are “lazy”? 😉
By: crudbasher on February 4, 2011
at 12:31 pm