4 ms·
History will repeat itself. The story of these publishers trying to claim some significant web space reminds me of the internet gold rush of the 90s. We had al
by waynehaworth 14y ago
History will repeat itself. The story of these publishers trying to claim some significant web space reminds me of the internet gold rush of the 90s.
We had all these flashy sites springing up trying to leverage this new web technology in wrong way, by adding all sorts of whiz-bang most was unnecessary. We had an incorrect (immature?) view as to what this new technology should be used for.
Just because we have iPads and other tablets with the potential to pump out lots of flash-bang, does not mean we need to build our apps submerged with these features. iPads (and the net in general) give us many great advantages over print media not related to putting extra pixels on screen, many of which are beginning to be taken advantage of.
Marco Arment recently launched his iOS magazine (http://www.marco.org/2012/10/11/the-magazine http://www.marco.org/2012/10/11/the-magazine) which strips bare many of the hassles involved with paper based publishing and delivers an excellent reader experience while cutting out all the crap which publishers seem to believe they need to inject into their online models.
I could be wrong, but if The Daily had concentrated on putting out excellent content, quickly, with a minimal interface with excellent sharing options, maybe things would have been different? Surely they could have avoided spending much of the $30 million on start-up costs.
Rather than listening to the siren singing us to shipwreck upon the glittery rocks of "Web 2.0", we should be using this new technology to help get better content to readers more often. Fuck the rest.
- nglevin 14y ago> I could be wrong, but if The Daily had concentrated on putting out excellent content, quickly, with a minimal interface with excellent sharing options, maybe things would have been different? The Daily was an effort to compete with the likes of TMZ and USA Today. Light on reading, heavy on "entertainment." And kept snugly within the bounds of a paywall. Marco's magazine might work for something like IEEE or ACM, but I can't imagine News Corporation buying into it. They really, really did not want to let go of the pretty pictures and panoramas. :)