TAKEAWAY: So The Daily app may not have gotten perfect yet, but neither has The New York Times’ tablet edition. It is good that both are getting better all the time, and so is the discussion of what a news app should be.
In one of our blog posts last week we mentioned the first birthday of the highly promoted first newspaper totally created for the iPad: The Daily.
The creation of Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, The Daily cost $30 million to launch, and, according to a Monday
%0A">
%0A" title="piece in The New York Times">piece in The New York Times, “ has struggled to break into the national conversation or to drive news and build on its brand the way traditional outlets do.”
So far so good, and we don’t question this observation.
What I find interesting in the Times’ piece about The Daily is this explanation:
In part, The Daily has been limited by the structure of the app itself, which renders beautiful pages of text, photos and graphics but lacks the fluidity of the networked Web or the immediacy of blogs and Twitter. Editors might update the app once or twice a day, depending on news events. Critics immediately grumbled that The Daily seemed oddly static.The Times’ piece mentions that The Daily lacks the fluidity of the networked Web or the immediacy of blogs and Twitter. The word “static” is also used in the article.
This is at the heart of a frequent discussion for newspaper publishers and editors who contemplate starting a tabloid edition for their title. How “fluid” should a tablet edition be in terms of its links to the web and the constant updating of news.
If the opposite of static is pop up heaven, then The Daily has advanced somewhat in that area from its beginnings, but still not enough.
In my view, even though all the research available tells us that a majority of iPad readers use the platform during prime time evening hours, the so called “lean back” time, they still wish to lean forward at any minute to check on updates. I know I do that myself, and, since The New York Times’ tablet edition is the one I follow most faithfully from anywhere in the world, I hit the Refresh command to make sure my version of any article is the latest.
Although the Times does this quite well, I think its tablet edition remains quite static. Obviously, the Times’ execs have decided that fluidity and links to its Web network is what matters for the newspaper with the motto “All the news that’s fit to print”, which in the tablet edition may translate to something like “All the news that’s fit to update.”
The Daily has opted not to go strongly for either news updates or more pop ups (although it does better in the latter).
Perhaps as The Daily takes stock of its first year and projects itself into the future, it may be helpful to focus on a strategy. To me, The Daily is a tabletized version of the New York Post, but with higher aspirations. So they should define what those aspirations are, and, if they could involve more frequent updates to please those “lean forward” users, while creating more pop up moments that are uniquely iPad, then the fingers would be happy too.
In 2012, a news app must have the fluidity that allows for frequent updates and links to the newspaper’s website, but it is also extremely important that it shows its Tablet (yes, with a capital letter) side with pop ups and non linear methods of telling stories.
The fact that this dialog is taking place is encouraging and very necessary.
