The first week of The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s iPad-only newspaper has crystallised my evolving view of what does, and does not, make for a successful news publication on the tablet.
What does, I think, is an informative publication with plenty of in-depth content that can be downloaded rapidly because it does not contain a lot of heavy video and data which requires minutes to be transmitted even over broadband.
What does not is an all-singing, all-dancing multimedia production that is probably very impressive but which takes far too long to download and use. Very few people are likely to bother to wait.
The Daily’s launch emphasized its innovative multimedia aspects – 360 degree photos, moving charts, video etc. Even that was not good enough for Shane Richmond of The Daily Telegraph, who complained of The Daily’s “a complete lack of imagination”:
It’s not a ‘native’ iPad experience at all, it’s a news magazine torn up and stuffed, page-by-page onto the iPad screen. After months of waiting to see Rupert Murdoch’s grand vision for this new medium, it turns out he wants to sell us the old vision but with a couple of videos thrown in.
That view strikes me as misguided. Actually, what The Daily has lacked this week is not impressive newfangled technology but enough news stories – and especially exclusive stories that would provide a reason to subscribe.
Several observers, led by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, have complained that The Daily takes too long to download. I suspect this may be because there are video advertisements embedded within in.
I wrote a column last year about how the iPad would require publishers to spend money on multimedia content because of the capacity of the device. But in practice, I find myself preferring lightweight, simple news apps, such as The Economist’s.
It would not add to the download time for The Daily to add to the three (yes, only three) news stories included in several editions this week. Perhaps it ought to forget about the 360 degree photos and find some more exciting text.
Update: The issue of Monday February 7, which I have just downloaded, has four “news” stories. Two of them are about the Superbowl, a third is about large houses that are not selling, and the third is a video of Jimmy Fallon, the chat show host as he “whips his hair”. I rest my case.
