Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Why the iPad Newspaper is Doomed

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
Why won't The Daily (Murdoch's, not mine) succeed? "Slower news-and at a higher price." Also, "there will be no inbound links, and reportedly no outbound links to the web, either." Which means nothing pushing viewers toward you. And it will be hard to generate revenue. "At 99 cents per week, the newspaper will generate only $5.1 million in subscription revenue for every 100,000 subscribers [per year] - minus Apple's cut, typically around 30 percent." Yet "Murdoch's newsroom expenses alone should easily run north of $7 million." Why might it work? Well, it is marketed through Apple, and there is a huge coolness factor to the iPad. Murdoch makes enough from other enterprises to keep it afloat for quite a while. And even though Wired could only attract 30,000 readers to the iPad, maybe 2 or 3 hundred thousand isn't unreasonable for a general interest newspaper.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 13, 2024 10:41 a.m.

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