News Corp's The Daily Is Doomed 246
rsmiller510 writes "After all of the hype, it was surprising how much The Daily, the new News Corp. iPad daily newspaper, looks like a conventional news magazine. Ultimately, though, it's an old model in a new package and as such will fail."
This could backfire, Steve (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok mods will burn me for this... but I think that their move to charge 30% off of the dying news industry might seriously backfire. Consider this:
i) the media industry has friends in high places;
ii) given enough time, they will become desperate and have nothing to lose;
To bet against Steve has been a surefire loss for a long time. But I would never fight against those with friends in high places, desperate, with nothing to lose.
I think it's only a matter of time between the news cycle starts turning all "Apple the subject of antitrust laws?" or the classic "Should Apple be broken up?". Neither AT&T nor IBM nor MS had a good run with the state dept. Perhaps Apple is overstreching a bit too far here; I for one think the backlash isn't worth that 30% cut.
Narrow and naive point of view (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank god, there is Ron Miller to tell us what to think and like.
While I am not particularly excited about The Daily specifically, Miller's assertion that "we" (who is "we"??) don't want a paid daily newspaper from a single source is very arrogant and short sighted. Many of us _do_ want a paid daily newspaper from a single source. No, that is not all that "we" read, but "we" like the reliable and consistent quality and even a little predictable bias. It is not the same as Google News. I am not bashing the latter, but to assume that everybody wants the same thing is amazingly naive.
"20-century model" in a "21-century package" is "doomed to fail from the get go". Oh my. Such buzz-filled nonsense makes me sick. A paper book is a 16-century model, and a Kindle is the same but in a "21-century" package. Are they doomed to fail?
Don't like "The Daily" (I personally don't) - OK - don't f*ink read it. But don't pretend you have deep all-encompassing insights about what everybody wants in the "21st century".
Where is the new media? (Score:2, Interesting)
I checked it out. Its very pretty, but its just like having a pdf copy of any print magazine. If I wanted that I would just go to a newsstand a buy a magazine. There is nothing there to make you go "wow i haven't seen that before" and unfortunately for them without a wow factor this just isn't going to fly. Perhaps if it had imbedded photo galleries, interactive charts, etc, it might be more interesting but as it is, its comes across as a scanned version of a print magazine. Its just hard to believe they have already burned through 30 million and this is what they ended up with. For half a million a week, I would expect at least some level of interactivity and information I cant find elsewhere...so far they are delivering neither.
Re:This could backfire, Steve (Score:2, Interesting)
Not My Problem (Re:Content HAS to be paid for in) (Score:4, Interesting)
If these guys really believe in capitalism as purported, then it isn't my or any other person's or even Apple's problem for News Corp to make money on anything let alone an iPad app. If these guys really believe in capitalism as purported, News Corp or Murdoch may recognize a demand but have no way to capitalize on it today then it isn't our problem to solve either where both we or Apple should be free to walk away from what News Corp wants to do if they think it is a bad idea or bad deal. Failing to make money is a normal part how capitalism works were laying the blame at the feet of others is not interesting if one really believes in the virtues of capitalism.
But this is something that has always bothered me about Murdoch. Those conservative values are near and dear and paramount and we will beat that drum and sing those praises about them...until those values work against us then it is entirely utterly unfair and not our fault. If it turns out this time the market is working against News Corp, it is a good time for News Corp should rethink their strategy instead of News Corp crying we and Apple rethink ours. It is not our or Apple's problem that News Corps sunk $30M US plus $500k US a week into something where telling us and Apple how wrong we are flies in the face of capitalism.
Re:Content HAS to be paid for in SOME way (Score:4, Interesting)
SOMEONE has to be paid to produce content. It doesn't just magically appear from the Content Fairy. Just as people have to be paid if you want your grass cut or your hair cut or your plumbing fixed, you have to pay the people who produce content.
100 million free videos on YouTube and 10 millions lines of open source software appear to argue that people don't need to be payed to produce content. What is needed is methods of separating the 99.99% crap from the 0.01% of content that is actually worth consuming, despite the fact that which 0.01% is worth it varies from person to person. I'd give Google a much better chance of aggregating personalized content than Rupert Murdoch. Traditionally I would have argued that you still need to pay editors, but Wikipedia is founded on the principle that you don't, so now I'd say it's still an open issue.