The Daily: Will Murdoch's Fancy New iPad Newspaper Save Publishing?

Probably not. But it does have lots of widgets and video modules.

Rupert Murdoch today announced a news-distributing iPad app jointly produced with Apple and Steve Jobs that he is betting will save newspapers.

“This pioneering digital venture, fully championed by Steve Jobs and the rest of his team at Apple, establishes an entirely new category of delivery and consumption,” he told UK publishers in a memo.

It costs $1 a week, a recurring subscription. Is it really worth it when you can already get most of the same stories for free online through sites like the New York Times? Putting the same content inside a touch-sensitive news app isn’t a game changer.

It’s like when the first movies were made. A bunch of them were just staged plays that were filmed. The producers tried to leverage what they knew and their existing infrastructure by porting it over wholesale into the new medium. That didn’t last very long.

What will really make or break it is how good the journalism is inside the pretty package and whether the producers really take full advantage of the device to create a news consuming experience you can’t get anywhere else.

The Daily [iTunes Store]

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