The Daily For The Apple iPad - Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs' Media Risk

The Daily,the long-awaited iPad-only news publication that's the result of a team-up between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation, was released on Wednesday. The representatives of The Daily were kind enough to ask this blogger for a review, thus this vlog and post.

I want to be excited about The Daily, and for the most part, I am. But let me get my issues with it out of the way, up front. The first problem is it has three barriers to success, which are also economic barriers to entry: you need an iPad to use it, there's a $39 cost for the news after a 14-day period, and you have to want the content they're presenting. Those are rather significant blocks to over come.

The other problem reared its head when I saw the staff makeup: it's almost all white male. In an era where Americans, who are the most likely to consume this product to some degree, prize diversity as a sign that you're cool, hip, and intelligent, the makeup is not the way to go.

A diverse staff generally equals diversity in thought, not necessarily politically, but relationally. A black or Hispanic person, and a black Hispanic person, will view issues involving people of color differently than a white male. Throw in female orientation and you have yet another perspective. A news product that reflects diversity of thought is more fun and provocative than one that does not.

But with all of those shortcomings, The Daily is still an exciting development just because it's the first of its kind.  The content is fresh, and the videos on subjects like The Super Bowl have celebrities like Kathy Griffin offering a hilarious perspective.   

The other attraction, which I can't comment on beyond the video below because I don't have an iPad (I avoided purchasing one at first out of protest against its subpar video-blogging usefulness) is the user interface. It's designed to work as if you were flipping through the pages of a magazine. Moreover, it has access to apps and games.

In short, The Daily is packed with features.

But so is the Wired iPad app, and with a download price of just $5, it was considered too expensive by Jay Yarow at Business Insider at SFGate.com.

And how's the Wired app doing? Well, after a promising start, not so well. Sales dropped from 100,000 in June to 31,000 in August. And by December came the news that people just were not buying iPad magazine apps.

Into this comes The Daily. I think Jobs and Murdoch should have created an iPad app portal for existing blogs - a cross between Technorati and The Daily, with a chance for bloggers to earn revenue if a post is featured.

But for now we have The Daily in its present form. Let's see what happens.