Tag archive: newspapers

Earlier this week, The Boston Globe rolled out a brand new version of its website coded in HTML5 and operating behind a premium paywall. Ideally designed to cut out Apple's 30 percent cut for revenue generated with a Boston Globe app on the iPad, users can simply so to the Web address in Safari and type in login information to access articles on the site. The newspaper also operates a free site for news junkies at Boston.com, but the… Read More

Google is now allowing publishers to choose top stories to highlight within the Google News section. The new Editors' Picks section started as a Google Labs experiment last year and Google has been actively working with more than 20 major publishers on perfecting the new content feed. Publishers get to decide what stories, videos or audio clips are going to be displayed in the feed and send that information to Google with a special RSS… Read More

In one of the odder stories of the weekend, a misunderstanding between a Belgian newspaper and Google has, once again, turned into a public spat. The AP reports that “La Capitale” claimed on its Website on Friday that Google had begun “boycotting” it and other members of Copiepresse in what it claimed was retaliation over a copyright infringement lawsuit. In 2006, the newspapers sued Google for including their search… Read More

After 168 years in print, the UK's most widely read newspaper, the News of the World, hit the newsstands for the last time on Sunday. The decision to close the weekly tabloid was taken last week by its owner, News International, following allegations regarding the hacking of mobile phones by journalists and private investigators who once worked for the paper. Revelations about the phone hacking grew in seriousness in recent days, causing… Read More

The Kindle might be outselling good-old-fashioned books over at Amazon, but that doesn’t mean e-reading has all the advantages. A study from digital research firm Miratech reveals that iPad readers are less likely to retain information than those reading from newspapers. “We asked a representative sample of participants to read similar information from a printed newspaper first, and then from its iPad version,” the study explains. The learning… Read More

The New York Times ignited some controversy with its plans to require paid subscriptions to access content via its Web site—first by taking the Grey Lady behind a paywall, second by announcing unexpectedly high subscription prices for online access…and then by deployed a paywall that was trivially easy to bypass. In reporting its financial results for its first quarter of 2011, however, the company sees a bright spot in its future… Read More

A new report from The Pew Internet & American Life Project confirms our suspicions: while Americans are increasingly likely to get news from their tablets and smartphones, few are actually willing to pay for the privilege. According to the study, almost half (47 percent) of American adults are likely to use their mobile devices to get at least some of their local news and information. Practical, real-time information is most popular. For… Read More

Last week, Apple raised the hackles of the content industry by barring a Sony Reader application from the iTunes App Store, and apparently shifting its policy so that all paid content updates to iOS applications have to run through the iTunes App Store—with Apple getting a 30 percent cut on the sales. Now, the European Newspaper Publishers' Association is slamming the Cupertino company, calling for Apple to enable developers to… Read More

The old-timey concept of a paperboy peddling his way through your neighborhood at the crack of dawn pitching newspapers onto welcome mats is dead. If it didn’t die with child labor laws, the guy who now delivers your paper in an El Camino, or Internet, you can rest assured it died today with the launch of The Daily. Newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch presented the world’s first iPad-exclusive digital newspaper at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum,… Read More

In an attempt to make good with newspapers and magazines, Amazon is slashing its slice of subscription prices in half, to 30 percent. According to The Register, the new split will give content producers 70 percent of the income from their subscriptions on Kindle devices and app run by Amazon. If 70-30 looks familiar, it should. The split has become quite popular, almost standard, since Apple introduced it on its iTunes App Store a few years… Read More

Borrowing media may not die with the digital age. Amazon has announced that Kindle users will soon have the ability to share e-books with one another. Anyone with a Kindle or a Kindle app on a smartphone or tablet will soon be able to lend a book to another user  for 14 days, free of charge. During the loaning period, the book will not be accessible to the person who loaned it, much like how loaning a book in the physical world works. Book… Read More

Word on the street is that Apple is expected to announce a new subscription plan for newspapers soon. While Apple hasn’t confirmed this rumor, The San Jose Mercury News reported Apple is in talks with major metropolitan newspapers to “recreate the traditional print model” in tablets and e-readers. Newspapers have been cautiously eying tablets like the iPad as a new revenue stream as they struggle with declining print circulation and free-falling… Read More

Internet search leader Google Inc. is teaming up with The New York Times and The Washington Post in its latest attempt to help out the ailing newspaper industry. The new project, called “Living Stories,” debuted Tuesday in the experimental “labs” section on Google's Web site. The service is supposed to make it easier for readers to follow evolving news stories. It will package stories from both the Times and the… Read More

Five of the nation's largest publishers of newspapers and magazines are announcing a joint venture to develop a digital newsstand for portable devices that would rival the system Amazon.com Inc. has made for its Kindle reader.

News Corp's Rupert Murdoch has begun waging a fight for newspapers and other paid content providers to lock their content behind so-called “paywalls” so only paid subscribers may have access. The move is based in part on the comparative success of the Wall Street Journal locking its specialized content behind a paywall (News Corp owns the Wall Street Journal), and Murdoch has repeatedly threatened to take the major of News… Read More