Time Magazine App Costs Too Much?

MediaMemo has brought attention to the fact that some media outlets, like Time Magazine, are charging big money for little its iPad apps. Bringing up the question is $4.99 a week to much to pay for Time Magazine's app?

Some would say it is, considering if one were to purchase Time Magazine at a local newsstand, it would cost roughly the same amount. Not to mention, a lot of users get there apps free off the Web, and would be outraged to have to pay $4.99 a week for one app.

Others would justify that the price is not to much, because of all the extra features the app provides to users over the print edition of Time. Meaning, users are actually getting more for their money.

Time, Inc. refutes that the price is to much with the logic that the price of the app will eventually be lowered, but it cannot be lowered, if the app is already priced low. Also, Time, Inc. will eventually offer discounted subscriptions to the app that will be much cheaper than the week to week paid price.

That is all well and good, what Time, Inc. plans to do about its prices, but what about other media outlets who have very high priced apps? Will they follow suit with Time, Inc. and eventually lower prices and offer discounted subscriptions? OR will they continue to have high prices because there is no regulation on how much they can charge for an app?

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Logging Off

There is a new website offering to end your online lives. The site, called Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, claims to give people back their real life by wiping out their social networking accounts. It claims to do this significantly faster than manually removing accounts.

Network Analyst Jason Hill of Clive felt like he was checking his online accounts too much and felt managing Facebook was becoming a full time job. He notified his friends and logged off for the last time in March.

Professor Michael Bugeja suggests everyone rethink online life. "Think about everything you do from iPhones to Second Life to social networking or Twitter, its doing two things at once: surveilling you and selling to you," said Bugeja, the Director of the Greenlee School of Journalism at Iowa State.

Breaking the addiction to social networking sites is difficult, but reconnecting with family and friends in person is well worth it.

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Top Ten Journalism Pieces

New York University’s Carter Journalism Institute chose the top ten journalism pieces from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009. The winning pieces are:

1. The New York Times',"A Nation Challenged," Fall 2001
2. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx, 2003
3. Lawrence Wright's, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, 2006
4. Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson's, This American Life & NPR: "The Giant Pool of Money," May 2008
5. C.J. Chivers (reporter), Dexter Filkins (reporter) and Tyler Hicks' (photographer), The New York Times, 2003-2009
6. Jane Mayer's, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, 2008
7. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, 2001.
8. The Times-Picayune staff's, New Orleans, La. Coverage of Hurricane Katrina, August-December 2005
9. Anne Hull, Dana Priest (reporters) and Michel du Cille's, (photographer)"Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's Top Medical Facility," February 2007, The Washington Post
10. Walter Robinson, Michael Rezendes, Sacha Pfeiffer, Matt Carroll, Stephen Kurkjian, Tom Farragher, Michael Paulson, Kevin Cullen, Ben Bradlee Jr., Mark Morrow's, "Abuse in the Catholic Church," The Boston Globe, 2002

Descriptions of each piece can be found here.

Faculty from the institute, as well as other journalist, including: Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz; Morley Safer of “60 Minutes”; and Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Leon Dash, a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign comprised the panel that determined the winners. The top ten pieces reflect the passage of time from 2000 - 2009.

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Lil Wayne Blogs From Jail

Lil Wayne may be doing his time in jail but that doesn't mean his fans will not being hearing from him. Let's just say he doesn't want to be forgotten while he's gone.

The rapper launched a new Web site on Friday, April 2 WeezyThanxYou.com where he'll be able to connect with his fans by posting weekly updates, blogs about sports and respond to letters he's received from fans since he began his sentence last month.

In the first post, Wayne explains that he's been spending his days working out and reading the Bible.

The rapper also announced he will revive his popular ESPN blog, where in the past he opined on various sports. Next week's scheduled post will be on the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

Wayne also writes on more personal issues like his family. He also writes that he is doing well despite the rumors of altercations at Rikers Island.

In addition to the posts, the site features a clock that counts down how much time the rapper has until his release, which is currently 212 day. Fans will also be able to purchase a "Free Weezy" T-shirt and Tweet on blogs and posts.

"Weezy explained to me the idea behind WeezyThanxYou.com, which will basically serve as his gateway to the free world," said Civil in a statement to MTV News."'I wanted to do something for my fans, so they know I am still with them and that I love them very much'" Wayne said to Civil according to MTV News online.

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Goolge, News Innovator?

Google may hold the future of news in its hands and has what many publishers wished that had thought of first. Google's newest product, Fast Flip may be the latest tool that will be an asset to news today.

The Fast Flip allows news consumer to flip through news stories. What's interesting about the Fast Flip is that Google is now taking the lead where publishers used to be on top.

Publishing has always been about packaging content such as newspapers, magazines and newsletters.

With a new era of digital media, on the web, the news package is now a function of software which is why Google is the leader and the publishers are not.

Fast Flip is an attempt to recreate a better UI for news. This will be a better way to consume publishers' content than publishers provide on their own site.

In publishing most are focused on how to charge for news but hardly any conversation on how to innovate the packaging of news, much less a new UI for news. Also there is little discussion on how people consume news on the web, about the value of aggregating articles from multiple sources about solving consumers' problems rather than publishers' problems.

This is why Google is taking the lead on figuring out how to create new news package and why they will continue to control the lucrative front end of distribution.

Google is sharing revenue with publishers because Fast Flip goes way beyond linking to actually partially reproducing entire web pages. Publishers will have to be content with the revenue that Google shares unless they finally decide to compete on the real playing field that will determine the future of news and publishing.

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