News Corp. chief digital officer Jon Miller told the audience at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit that The Daily faces a “moment of truth next week” when free digital subscriptions to the digital paper run out. The Daily has been available as a free trial since it launched in February, but that free trial will expire – only those who have actually paid for subscriptions will be able to view The Daily’s content.
“Although the Daily has been free so far, it is understood that a few thousand people have already signed up to the year-long subscription. News Corp has not released any numbers, but it is estimated that the figure is in the region of 5,000.”
News Corp. made a splash when it introduced The Daily as a daily digital newspaper premiering on the iPad. “New times demand new journalism,” News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said, “…and a new service edited and designed specifically for new devices.”
The Daily set for Europe availability; editions next? [paidContent.org]
Even though I can’t read this newspaper and wouldn’t anyway, I’m nevertheless very much interested how it will fare in months to come.
The Daily (and every other newspaper/magazine app on the iPad) needs to revamp their apps before they are a success.
Right now The Daily, Wired, Project Magazine, and most others deliver the entire contents of their iPad apps using images. I mean, really!? Images? Most of the content is TEXT! Why in the hell are you using images?
Needless to say, this doesn’t just make their apps bloated. Bloated would be if they were 1.5 to 2 times the size they should be. These apps are way beyond bloated! All the images makes these apps HUNDREDS OF MBs when they should be tens of MBs.
It’s freaking ridiculous. So, not only are these newspaper and magazine Apps freaking HUGE. They are sluggish and jittery (ie. They Daily navigation wheel).
I am NOT going to pay for a weekly/monthly app that takes up almost a Gig of space on my iPad, takes forever to download the update, and runs like crap!
Their apps need to be light weight, and very fast to navigate. Until then they are dead in the water.
If my experience is any indication, it won’t fare well.
Poorly coded app coupled with boring, silly and/or poorly written news…then throw in the fact that most of the reportage is the same as I get elsewhere…for free..means The Daily has no place for me.
I get what you mean. It did make me curious if Murdoch — of all people — could launch a successful product, while being rooted in and hampered by “old media views”.
But as you said, slapping a nicely looking, but badly coded interface on mediocre content, isn’t exactly a foolproof plan for success.
Just last week I cancelled my newspaper subscription for this semester — a very good weekly newspaper, called ‘Zeit’ — because while delivering top-notch reporting, I simply didn’t have the time to read it. Their iOS app offering is good, but not very compelling and inflexible.
I often get the feeling that those old media types don’t take devices like the iPad or Kindle seriously, but regard them as a necessary evil; something you have to deliver for, because it might give them a slightly wider reach. They don’t understand that they have to deliver an entirely different value proposition to an almost entirely new type of consumer.
I can’t imagine News Corp is very happy with having only 5000 subscribers at this point.