Publishing Crossroads – The Main Intersection

With the advent of mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone, newspapers and magazines see a hitherto nonexistent opportunity for generating paid subscription digital versions as the new mobiles (and they WILL be proliferating like rabbits!) will be hungry for great, meaningful and pertinent content.

The publishing crossroads is a balancing act between the younger generation, used to digital media and expecting instant info, and the older generation, still loyal to print…and how to make both profitable while complimenting each other!

Tony Glover writes this for The National:

Publishers put future at fingertips with iPad papers

Business moguls such as Rupert Murdoch and Sir Richard Branson are developing newspapers and magazines that can be viewed only online on the Apple iPad. This move to entirely digital newspaper publishing could herald a global expansion of online publishing in regions such as the Middle East, which have a growing thirst for local content.

Mr Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp, is reported to be planning a daily digital iNewspaper to launch on the iPad, which it is understood will be called The Daily. He is believed to have a staff of 100 in place in New York to run the newspaper. The absence of printing costs means The Daily is expected to retail at only 99 cents a week. The project follows Mr Murdoch’s move to make the digital versions of the UK’s The Times and The Sunday Times pay-only websites.

But The Daily has already attracted criticism from rivals who say that a staff of 100 is too small to produce a credible daily newspaper. However, some of Mr Murdoch’s rivals, such as Sir Richard, are trying to leapfrog News Corp by publishing offerings of their own, with Virgin expected to unveil an iPad magazine in New York this week.

Newspaper publishers are becoming convinced that iNewspapers on devices such as the iPad will gradually come to replace print. Many of the world’s leading publications are also developing versions of their publications specifically for the iPad. The Economist, for example, has an iPad application and, like other digital publishers, considers these new internet devices as ideal for winning market share in regions such as the Middle East, where print distribution can be expensive.

Sanjay Gohil, the iPad production editor at the Financial Times, says: “The iPad is a lot more nimble and quick than traditional PCs and allows you to download electronic newspapers and read them later, when you are without an internet connection.”

He says the iPad allows online newspapers to become multimedia products, offering video and audio clips in addition to print and stills photography.

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Everything Just Can’t be Free Forever!

Giant newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch has been trying to figure out how to charge for online news for some time…He already has some success with The Wall Street Journal, but, this is a paper geared toward business people who expect to pay for so-called propriety news…He is trying to monetize other online consumer news to save the newspaper industry (really his own hide)…Seems advertizing income and subscriptions are way down!

Some simple questions by this outsider simpleton:

1- If your online product represents the gold standard in your niche, why should online advertising go down? If you can implement the attitude that you only accept ads from the top and true businesses and they have been suitably vetted, I would think advertisers would be knocking your door down to get to you (and into this sppecial ad category) with money in hand!

2- Why not get a letter of agreement between all major newspaper publishers to give say 40% of online news free with some payment for remaining news…or something similar? I think this is where old Rupert is falling short…You know, getting the old consortium.

Truthfully, I feel that the conglomerate that Murdoch has built up in the newspaper business is bad for this country, by any standard, and should definitely be broken up. Especially since he and his papers represent a drastically one-sided (and therefore short-sided) point of view that favors Wall Street (big business…often greedy & crooked) over Main Street (the majority of the country and the main purpose for it’s existence…of, by and for the people; and all that stuff.

Rupert, old chap, you can’t take it with you when you die…You’re going out the same way you came in…naked and poor.

Frank Reed of Marketing Pilgrim reports this:

Earlier this month I explored the idea that Rupert Murdoch’s impending paywall announcement was just that; impending. In a News Corp earnings call he said that the publishing giant would have something to announce in 3-4 weeks regarding a group of publishers that would be banding together to take specialized content and put it in an area that would require a subscription for access. The conventional wisdom, even for someone as adamant about the need to paywalls now, is that there needs to be a consortium of sorts to make this a reality.

Well, we are just about at the 3-week point of this self-imposed time line and there are some doubts as to just how real this whole deal is. Peter Kafka of All Things Digital reported earlier this week.

Within the next two weeks or so, we’re supposed to hear about Rupert Murdoch’s digital news subscription service–the one he has been trying to put together for many months.

One problem: That service is supposed to feature content from publications other than those owned by Murdoch. And sources familiar with News Corp.’s plans tell me Murdoch has yet to sign partners on to the venture.

Read more at Marketing Pilgrim: http://alturl.com/hu4s