As you can see it is from the Australian trying to plug their application for the iPad at $4.99 a month. Now, I don't know about you but this just seems over the top. I mean, I already subscribe to a couple of their mailings list for free, which deliver content to my email everyday for the princely sum of nothing. Then there is their website, which has all the content which is going to be in the app.
Dear Me,
At The Australian we are committed to delivering our world-class journalism in new and innovative ways.
That's why we have launched an iPad application to coincide with the release of Apple's new device in this country today.
This exciting technology will give readers the opportunity to enjoy the best reporting and analysis in the nation using the unique functionality of the iPad. The Australian's app brings together the best elements of both print and digital news in one convenient and seamless experience.
If you thought there was only one way to read the news, think again.
To purchase at $4.99/month, go to the App Store on your iPad and search 'The Australian'.
In association with our launch partners: Commonwealth Bank, IBM, Emirates and Optus.
So I'm not really keen to stump up the cash for content that I can get for free and I know pretty much all my other tech minded friends think this way. Then there are other problems that the Apps face, which have been covered pretty well in this post. The basic summary is that using an App instead of using the browser destroys the interconnectedness that makes the web awesome. You can read this post, open that link in another tab in the background, flick back and forth between then, send out a tweet about the link etc, all without leaving the browser, the App has to be awesome to do all that and until there is good multitasking support in the iPad this isn't really going to happen, it'll be hard to get it as easy to use as you can with tabs.
Then again, me and my circle of friends probably aren't who this is being aimed at, I read this morning that 10000 people have subscribed to the Online version of El Mundo which is a Spanish news paper and they are paying around 4 times the price of the Australian iPad App. Perhaps there are ten thousand people out there, who like my dad, like gadgets and like to be parted from their money. But then again there are key differences, El Mundo has a paywall, they don't have everything straight up on the website. They only have summaries and you need to subscribe to see the whole article on line, just like the WSJ.
In the end I do see a place for the paid content apps I just don't think they've hit the price on the head with this one. I'd probably be happy to stump up $1 a month or $20 a year but $60 seems to steep to me.
Heh well if you had the bright idea to buy a technological maxi pad then you might have the brain capacity to pay for a free service.
ReplyDeleteOh yes i did.