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media

The iPad will not Save Old Media

April 3, 2010 20:02:16.703

I agree with John Dvorak on this one - the iPad will not be the salvation of old media (newspapers and magazines). Why not?

No matter that you are not reading these journals now. For some unexplained reason you'll want to read them on the iPad. How does that make any sense?

Exactly. The problem is the content, not the medium. The old media guys haven't figured that out yet, and it looks like they never will.

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posted by James Robertson

Comments

Re: The iPad will not Save Old Media

[W^L+] April 3, 2010 20:48:52.173

I agree that it won't save them, but it will be likely to prolong the lives of old-style corporate media organizations. These appliance-type devices are too expensive to be limited to web browsing, so most users will wind up buying "content" to view on them.

They just won't buy enough to keep the existing hierarchy afloat. Multiple content provider companies, each with layers of corporate parents, and each of those parents with its own highly-paid managers plus real estate and financing charges, won't be supported on a few million people subscribing to content.

Re: The iPad will not Save Old Media

[anonymous] April 3, 2010 22:23:51.012

Yes, well the WSj and others are going to take a run at, charging you per month to view content via the iPad. We'll see how that works out. I'll guess the magazine industry will *stop* printing paper, perhaps for a 3 year subscription they'll send you an iPad (and still charge you a reduced rate)....

Re: The iPad will not Save Old Media

[Thierry] April 3, 2010 22:44:14.202

And without reasonable pricing that definitely not going to happen. With monthly newspaper-on-iPad subscriptions in the $17 - $20 range, that's not going to help.

Someone had to figure out a business model where one can read articles from different sources without having to pay a 4 figure bill at the end of the year.

I would plan like 'all you can read' for $200 max a year. I am not including regular books here. But I want to access few articles from different sources without having to pay a full subscription for each: (NYT, WSJ, The Economist, Scientific American, MIT tech review, Sports, etc).

Or maybe a 'pay as you go': few cents per articles?

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