Tag Archives: apple tablet

The New York Times and the tablet

This New York Times piece on print media’s hopes for the Apple Tablet, confirms that the company is developing a version of the paper for the tablet, but adds little detail:

The New York Times Company, for example, is developing a version of its newspaper for the tablet, according to a person briefed on the effort, although executives declined to say what sort of deal had been struck.

The New York Times has, however, announced its new ‘reader applications’ division:

On Monday, The Times also announced that its media group division had created a new segment for “reader applications,” and named Yasmin Namini, the senior vice president for marketing and circulation, to head it. Executives said the timing was coincidental, prompted not by the Apple device specifically, but by the growing importance to The Times of electronic reading devices in general.

The LA Times, meanwhile, reports that the New York Times is developing a large-screen version of the iPhone app – from Apple HQ:

Apple has been slowly amassing digital reading material for the forthcoming device. A team from the New York Times has been working in Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters in recent weeks, developing a large-screen version of the newspaper’s iPhone application that incorporates video for the yet-to-be-unveiled device, according to one person with knowledge of the matter. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment.

On MacRumours.com:

The New York Times has long held a close relationship with Apple in regards to the iPhone platform, frequently finding itself featured in demonstrations at media events and keynotes. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. revealed last week, however, that he will not be attending Apple’s media event, and when pressed for comment on Apple’s involvement with the newspaper’s plans for restructuring online access, said only “Stay tuned.”

And Gawker, which had the internal memo announcing the birth of the NY Times’ ‘reader application’ division:

We’re guessing [NY Times] newsroom staff will be watching Apple’s tablet event as obsessively as any Apple fanboys later this week, if only to get details on the “continued growth in this new and important segment of” Times business.

Pay walls for news will produce ‘more corpses than successes’, says report

With pay walls (or the discussion of) popping up right, left and centre in newsrooms at the moment, a new report from business and technology analysis firm Ovum won’t allay the fears of many media executives.

“Paywall experiments by traditional media in 2010 are virtually guaranteed to produce more corpses than successes,” it states in the opening line.

If the trend towards pay walls persists, there will be separation of “wheat from the chaff” when it comes to “premium” content, suggests the report:

The lessons from the web are simple; if content is not highly differentiated, or information premium and tradable, search technologies such as Google exist to provide an access channel to a zero cost source of identical or comparable content. The pay wall will act as a market-driven audit tool for what content is and is not premium and 2010 will see news and media organisations reassess their view of the online value of their content portfolios.

But online video and catch-up TV services have a greater opportunity to demand a pay-per-view premium, the report adds.

More happily for Ovum’s industry, the firm forecasts that paid content models will be a boost to service and technology vendors looking to create new platforms/payment systems and technologies rather than the media companies implementing them.

Ovum’s report suggests that Apple’s forthcoming Tablet technology could marry together the publishers hopes for paid content and the capabilities of the technology vendors:

Apple has demonstrated for the music industry that the combination of strong media retail platform with a consistent user experience across multiple, integrated devices can draw consumers away from free, but less elegant consumption models.

The news industry will be hoping that Apple can deliver a similar experience in 2010. If it fails to deliver, radical restructuring of the news media supply chain will be needed.

MediaShift: How will an ‘iTunes for magazines’ work?

MediaShift looks at how a digital store or an “iTunes for magazines” announced in December might work and make use of Apple’s much-anticipated Tablet touch-screen computer.

The digital magazine project will be led by Time Inc, Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith and News Corporation, but details of what it will offer and how it will work are scant.

This piece takes a look at what’s known about the project, how the business model might work and what it means for the print magazine industry.

Full story at this link…