Yes, the BBC has the huge advantage that it doesn’t depend on advertising, but they managed to make the web pages a low cost publication method.

I sometimes have the feeling that a lot of news operations are still trying to catch up with the BBC. Its reputation counts for a lot, and that website, using the same journalism, using the same branding, hardly needed to do anything but work. The Murdoch news empire is big, but it isn’t really a brand in itself. Never mind the quality of the journalism, what is “The Daily”?

The way the technology was used was hardly the only problem.

The retort about “tablet-specific journalism” is a cop out. Is there “print-specific journalism”? “Web-specific journalism”? Journalism is journalism; the medium may afford opportunities to enhance the story – visuals, sounds, interaction – but the story is the story, period. As a medium, a tablet is identical to the web: a screen, speakers for audio, touch or a pointer and a (virtual) keyboard for input, a microphone.

The story here is that NewsCorp squandered a tremendous opportunity, not only in terms of publicity, having been launched in partnership with Apple, but in terms of a billing and delivery framework that successfully convinced people to pay for what they can generally get free online.

2. Google had year to develop its maps. Apple started over. Not the same thing. You want to write about a business decision: think about whether Google was smart not giving Apple vector based maps and turn-by-turn directions. They drove Apple to make its own maps and lose the search revenue because of what? Then check to see how much Google makes off iOS searches and ask yourself if jeopardizing that was worth it.

Felix, you are right to point out the web site as a much better/more evolved model. No publication can support building 5 experiences: iPad, iPhone, Android tablet and Android phone, plus a web site. It’s better to build one web site, optimized for all experiences. Then publications can focus on creating great content, not chasing the latest word of mouth hysteria.

I love reading the paper edition of the newspaper and still get the Sunday NY Times even though I also subscribe on the ipad. The tablet edition is like the paper but without the environmental costs and general clunkiness. It’s exactly what I want.

Same goes with most of what I do with the ipad: read pdf files. I don’t have to print out and store and mostly lose thousands of pages of paper anymore. I’ve got it on the ipad.

For other stuff I’ve got my computer. So count me as one of the people who like the way it has evolved, even if I’m in a minority.

We had the pleasure of hearing from the CEO of The Economist in the high tech community in Cambridge UK. Basically, they did audience analysis to figure out how people read their information. They learned that people saw The Economist as a “lay back” read, with a reserved time away from distractions to properly consider the arguments. That was highly compatible with the Kindle. Consequently they set a price on Kindle 4 times higher than New York Times.

In the meantime, the internet has completely cratered the old advertising model for financing news. Groups like CraigsList have destroyed huge amounts of value simply giving away margin to the buyers and sellers by letting them connect directly. That margin isn’t available to pay for reporting locally any more.

Simple. The Economist make money because people want to read the news they publish. The Daily was unable to, because subscribers aren’t willing to pay enough.

First of all, a tablet is just a computer. “Tablet” is the form factor, and saying:

“which is that tablets in general, and the iPad in particular, are actually much less powerful and revolutionary than many of us had hoped. Specifically, far from being able to offer richer content than can be found on the web, they actually find themselves crippled in unexpected ways.”

makes little sense. The tablet can do whatever a browser on a PC can do, it just makes it easier to use and more flexible in when it can be read. The richer content is mainly due to the touch screen on the tablet, which makes reading magazines and news more comfortable than on a computer.

“Every issue of a new publication has to be downloaded in full before it can be opened; this takes a surprisingly long time, even over a pretty fast wifi connection.”

That’s due to the choice of the Daily. If there aren’t that many photos or videos, it can be downloaded pretty quickly. You’re writing off the whole medium because the guy who bought MySpace didn’t understand what would be the best way to deliver the news on a tablet.

“Look at any publication you’re reading in an iPad app, and search for a story. Oh, wait — you can’t: search is basically impossible within iPad app”

That’s the app’s fault, not the tablet. Developers can design search functions into their apps; NewsCorp obviously felt it wasn’t important.

“The web, for instance, doesn’t need to traffic in discrete “issues” — if you subscribe to the New York Times, you can read any story you like, going back decades. Whereas if you subscribe to a publication on a tablet, you can read only one issue at a time.”

That’s a flaw, not a feature. That’s why the NYT charges more for digital versions than print, because they can’t charge as much for ads on a dynamic platform than they do for the static paper version. If they made ads sticky to pages that were downloaded, they could charge more for them, and then charge less for the digital subscription. I’m so ticked off that the NYT wants me to pay more for a digital subscription than for paper delivery (I don’t want them to cut trees, use ink, and burn fuel to get me a paper I won’t read) that includes a digital subscription, that I use the trick to get around their paywall that I learned here – delete everything in the address bar after .html.

“No iPad publication is remotely as innovative or as fun to read as, say, BuzzFeed,”

Why do they have to be fun? Isn’t more convenient, less expensive, and less energy intensive enough?

“You couldn’t watch episodes of The Simpsons, you couldn’t get access to amazing footage from Avatar, you couldn’t read exclusive extracts from HarperCollins books.”

So what? Does everything have to be cross-marketed? What if I just want the news, and don’t care about the Simpsons? I’ve seen Avatar more than once, do I really need my news source to let me quickly connect again? I just don’t see that as a factor in the failure of the Daily.

“there are many books I prefer in electronic format, but there isn’t a single magazine or newspaper which I’d rather read on the iPad than on paper.”

I prefer 3: The New Yorker, Wired, and the FT (the only issue with the FT is they do leave some stuff out of the ipad app). I doubt if I’m alone. For newspapers, I don’t have a problem reading any of them on the ipad, once I click on full site, instead of the mobile version, which does suck. The biggest problem with reading news on tablets is the most appropriate time to do that is while traveling, and that consumes bandwidth that VZ and ATT charge a lot for.

“As far as news and journalism are concerned, the verdict is in: tablets aren’t a new medium which will support a whole new class of publications — there’s almost nothing you can do well on a tablet that you can’t just put on a website and ask people to read in a browser.”

The only verdict that is in is that Murdoch doesn’t know how to utilize new technology.

“But the tablet is basically just one of many ways to see material which exists on the internet; it’s not a place to put stuff which can’t be found anywhere else.”

I’ll go along with that, but there’s no reason publishers can’t optimize their content for each delivery platform, including tablets.