Editor’s note: This article was reposted from pcmag.com.
The world will finally see what the hype is around News Corp.’s iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, when it’s unveiled Wednesday morning at a press event at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. But a select will get a preview tonight at an intimate cocktail party at CEO Rupert Murdoch’s apartment.
Everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow to see the product that Apple and News Corp are said to have developed together. But there’s a lot of buzz floating around the Web about what the publication will actually look like.
The Daily is a new frontier for News Corp. The media empire historically purchases a publication and goes in and restructures, as it did with The Wall Street Journal. By contrast, Murdoch starts from scratch with The Daily. He’s nabbed respected journalists from publications like Forbes and the New Yorker to create original content spanning a broad base of topics including news, arts, sports, entertainment, and opinion.
For all the talk that The Daily is cutting edge, it walks a thin line between something that is both modern and old-fashioned, All Things D’s Peter Kafka said. News Corp. owns All Things D, but Kafka said he hasn’t gotten an invitation to Murdoch’s preview and doesn’t expect to receive one.
The Daily will have a lot of the bells and whistles that are now generally associated with publications on the iPad, such as audio and video. It’s also been reported that it would include 3D video, but Kafka said it’s not there yet.
Although The Daily has a Web site, the focus is most definitely on the app. The site will have just a small sampling of content included in the app, but probably less than 10 percent.
Theoretically, The Daily will probably feel pretty similar to a traditional newspaper. It will have six sections of original content delivered once daily. It will even have a crossword. With the iPad-friendly features that a lot of users have come to expect, there isn’t much that would separate The Daily from consumer magazines on the iPad, except that it’s delivered each day rather than each month.
However, one striking difference, as well as the component that was said to delay the launch of The Daily, is that readers will be able to subscribe for $0.99 a week.
That means Murdoch’s publication has cleared a hurdle that other publications on the iPad haven’t yet overcome. While most major consumer magazines have an application for Apple’s iPad, these digital magazines haven’t taken off, due to the lack of a subscription model. Reports conflict on when this issue will be solved.
Before Apple CEO Steve Jobs went on medical leave, he was expected to appear on stage with Murdoch to reveal The Daily at a San Francisco event. In his place, Apple is sending its vice president of Internet Services, Eddie Cue to New York for Wednesday’s event.
Kafka said that Apple’s presence at the launch is important because it suggests that The Daily bears Apple’s stamp of approval.
For those that aren’t willing to drop $0.99 to test drive The Daily, it will be free for the first two weeks following tomorrow’s event. Stay tuned for PC Mag’s coverage of the launch.
iPad News Source: pcmag.com
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