News Corp. Brings A 'Daily' To The iPad
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Looking beyond today's journalism and preparing for the future, Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. CEO, will launch a new digital newspaper exclusively for the iPad and other tablets next year.
As reported by the New York Times, Rupert Murdoch is teaming up with Apple to bring "The Daily", a one-of-a-kind digital newspaper designed exclusively for the iPad and similar tablet devices, to the App store in early 2011 for $0.99 per week or about $4.25 per month.
Focusing on national coverage and culture, the Daily is expected to provide original content and deliver an outstanding multimedia experience as the iPad is known for.
"With an investment of $30 million and a staff of around 100 journalists, the Daily will be a 'newspaper' with rich video and photography built especially for the iPad," said David Carr, media columnist for the New York Times.
Although the content will include political topics of importance, editors want the Daily to be a fun read including pop-culture, sports, and editorials. the Daily's staff is composed of distinguished contributors of the mainstream media like Richard Johnson, "the New York Post's king of gossip", and Sasha Frere-Jones, pop-music critic of The New Yorker, among others.
the Daily will not have a website or a print edition, thus, it will be only available for download through the iPad and other still unannounced tablets.
The creation of the Daily is based from Murdoch's belief that "within a few years, tablet devices will be like cell phones or laptops - every member of the family will have one."
Murdoch is taking a chance with the iPad as a way to increase revenue towards the publication of news in difficult times for newspapers during a growing momentum of online news. As Carr puts it, "the Daily will be a newspaper, an ancient motif on a modern device."
As the Daily comes to a beta-mode test sometime in December, I can already foresee important changes for journalism in the year 2011. Perhaps, if the Daily turns out to be profitable, we might see the rise of a new trend and a benchmark for news publications to come in the future.
