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I’d Rather Not Pay for That

March 4th, 2011

Internet Strategy, User Experience Design

Earlier this week  I attended another terrific DC Mobile Marketing (dcMOMO) event.  Eighty mobile aficionados turned out to listen to a panel of gurus discuss what’s going on in their respective corporate mobile landscapes. Mobile directors from NPR, Discovery Communications, and National Geographic made up the panel, which was moderated by the Chief Vice President of Millenial Media.  Apart from lauding their own apps, the discussion circled around platforms of choice, the questionable mobility of the iPad (Demian Perry from NPR referred to it as a “nightstand”) and the monetization of apps.  It was this last topic that piqued my interest most, particularly when Mr. Perry proclaimed “Rupert Murdoch’s strategy will fail.”

Mr. Perry was specifically referring to “The Daily,” an iPad only, subscription-based newspaper that a few people from NavigationArts had actually listed as a favorite app  in our company-wide poll.  The whole paid apps vs. free apps debacle sparked a discussion about the  idea that no one is going to pay for something they can get for free.  Since NPR operates as a public service, it makes sense that they would never charge for an app.  Such a move would be completely out of line with their business model of keeping content free.  Not to mention free apps perform much, much better than purchased apps in terms of popularity based on total downloads.

There’s just one thing:  Rupert Murdoch is a billionaire many times over whose NewsCorp giant spans the globe and has its hands in just about every communications-related industry there is.  So, there must be some method to the madness, right?

According to Murdoch, charging the $39.99 yearly subscription ($0.99 per week) will support better [fair and balanced] content for the hyper-engaged iPad users and draw in better quality advertisers.  And, let’s face it: NewsCorp wants people to pay for those HD images and 360-degree views of the 100 pages of content they push out every day. Murdoch said, “New times demand new journalism. The devices that modern engineering has put in our hands demand a new service, edited and designed specifically for them.”

No matter how you spin this – that iPad users are so engaged with their tablets that they demand this type of interaction; that the exclusivity will draw in premium advertisers; that the beauty of the design will capture and retain customers – something isn’t sitting quite right.

I’m interested to see what happens.  Maybe “The Daily” will digitally reinvigorate the newspaper industry by encouraging others to follow its business model and begin generating the revenue they so desperately need.  But probably not.

What I want, and what I believe all users want, is content that is good and content that is free. “The Daily” will not succeed on good alone.  But hey, it was only a $30 million investment anyway.