Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has launched its iPad-only newspaper The Daily to much fanfare and mixed reviews by industry pundits.

The reason it has generated so much publicity is that it’s the first attempt to create a digital newspaper that’s available only on the iPad.

There are other newspaper iPad apps like the New York Times and the Washington Post but both have print and web components.

There is not the case with The Daily, which won’t even have a web component much less print. It’s an iPad publication in the strictest sense of the word. According to media reports, Murdoch has allocated some US$30 million to the enterprise and has a dedicated team creating original news content of up to 100 pages every day.

NONEBoth the New York Times and Washington Post have said they will charge a subscription for their iPad apps after the trial period is over.This seems to be the way forward for news organisations who learned their lesson on the web and realised they can’t allow the web’s culture of free access invade the iPad space. The Daily has priced its subscription very affordably at US$39.99 a year. There is a two-week trial period.

The Daily takes advantage of some special features of the iPad like “push notification” alerts for  latest news updates. And of course there will be social media sharing capabilities so you can send articles to your friends via networks like Facebook and Twitter.

However, from what I can gather, for the most part, The Daily is closer to a print rather than a web publication.

There’s very little interactivity possible and several online commentators have noted that it’s not even easy to contact the editor or to give feedback beyond the standard “comments” section. There are also very few embedded links in the articles (that lead to other web content, which is a common practice in web journalism).

Look and feel of print media

All this is by design of course. I suspect The Daily is very much targeted at those who like their newspaper delivered digitally but still want the look and feel of print media. You can even read The Daily offline. Once the latest edition is sync, you can browse through its content even when there is no Internet access.

With bureaus only in New York and Los Angeles, not only is meaningful local coverage impossible, even regional coverage would be very limited. So, it’ll be something like USA Today, a national newspaper which is not at all common in the US where even cities have their own local papers.

Unfortunately, the iPad app is not available in the Malaysian Apple App Store so we won’t be able to experience it. I guess it’s very much targeted at American audiences.

If you want to experience a really good international iPad news publication, I suggest that you subscribe to The Economist online which will give you access to both the web and the iPad version. It even has an audio version (the entire magazine in podcast format) which is also accessible through the iPad app.

If you don’t feel like paying any money for a good news app, consider Slate which is completely free and yes, it’s available via the Malaysian Apple App Store.

All around the world, print media is experiencing a decline. The web has been useful in terms of generating traffic but not nearly as good in generating advertising dollars. Perhaps the iPad, which gives a print-like experience but yet has multimedia and interactive capabilities, might be the saving grace for news media organisations.

The Daily is the boldest experiment with this new format but for sure it will not be the last. It’s a brave new media world out there.

 

OON YEOH’s new social media book ‘Like Me, Follow Me’ is published by MPH. You can connect with him via Facebook and Twitter.