Any news about new planets disvovered in the universe? New solarsystems with strings of Earths circulating?
One new Earth could be reserved for USA alone, and another one for me.
www.spaceinthebrain.homestead.com/
Ture
 
Just imagine  a number of Earths at the same distance to a Sun and with slightly different development on each of the Earths with a possible  travel distance between them.  One of the, say 4, different Earths, is populated with funny fatheads and another Earth is populated only with eggheads twice the size compared with the 3rd one populated with transparant people. And one Earth full of Gods not bigger than bacteria as we know.


       TURE  SJOLANDER
www.artau.homestead.com/
 

Subject: This is News!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Latest news NASA: 1.000 of Earths found in universe!!!!!!
 
 
 

 
 
 
http://www.joshuagans.com/
 
03 February 2011
 

A very News Corp Daily

41 Comments

Joshua Gans

Rupert Murdoch released The Daily - a new, iPad only newspaper. I watched the press conference and downloaded it. Let me answer some questions.

Is it revolutionary? Well, not quite. It is exactly what you would expect a daily newspaper on the iPad to look like that is modelled on newspapers of old. It is just upgraded with nice colour photos, embedded video, a way to comment and post to Twitter and Facebook and ads which sometimes do things other than just stare at you hoping for attention. So not revolutionary and the idea is you read it pretty much from cover to cover. That said, want to send a letter to the advice columnist and it is one click away. So it is digitally integrated. The weather also gets updated.

How is the content? Very News Corp. A couple of main stories up front, followed by a Gossip Section, opinion (quoting Tyler Cowen's book), arts & life, apps & games (including a crossword and Sudoku) and the sports at the back - you know, just like a newspaper. Sadly, no comics. It looks like a newspaper but it doesn't look like one that is of niche appeal. This is desired to hit the average iPad user.

Who is going to pay $1 per week for it? Well, it isn't too expensive, I’ll give it that. If you want to read a newspaper cover to cover every day and don't want it too heavy on content then this fits the bill. It is a commuter or breakfast newspaper. It is then worth the cost. I personally don't read that stuff on my commute - I’m into reading the feeds and seeing what is up on the NYT, CNN and ABC Australian news sites. My days of newspaper reading passed years ago so don't look at me. The question is whether there are still newspaper as opposed to news readers out there.

What about advertisers, will they fork out for it? My guess is that it will be useful for them given that this application will appeal to cover-to-cover readers. That is a chunk of attention they will pay to access. That said, it is no broadsheet. The ads pop up on pages as you flick through and I'm not sure that has the same display effect.

Will it last? So this is a strategy straight out the recent management literature. If your traditional business faces disruption, create a separate unit and compete in the new path. The problem is that there is only so big a market and there is little that The Daily is doing here that can't be replicated by others. If it is successful, the NYT will work out how to provide something essentially similar. If it is not, it is not. So News Corp are paying the costs of being first without necessarily much upside.

To survive The Daily needs 500,000 readers to cover the $500,000 weekly operating costs plus taxes plus return on investment plus cannabilisation of something or rather. That is a lot of readers and about 5 per cent of the iPad market as it will likely be around mid-year. If I had to guess then I would conclude that this is the past of newspapers rather than the future of the news.

Joshua Gans is a professor of economics at Melbourne Business School and a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

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Comments (41)

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  • Ture Sjolander :

    03 Feb 2011 10:12:40pm

    Rupert Murdoch's revolutionary iPad News plan can work very well but only if it will cause the Nobel Prize Committee to change their rules, and give for the very first time The Nobel Prize in Literature to a person who do NOT write a book.
    That would be a real revolution!
    The first person to nominate would be Julian Assange to the Literature Prize under one single condition, that he do not publish his story as a book.
    Everything up to date written by others about Julian Assange is as a matter of fact written by Mr. Assange.
    The quantity of writings published already around the entire international news media would not fit in to a book, not even hundreds of books.
    What am I trying to say, you may ask. I said that already in the other comment on this page.


    • Ture Sjolander :

      03 Feb 2011 7:23:55pm

      It is like fresh food: News items older than 3 minutes has expired and is not good for your mental health, no matter how it is presented.
      Don't pay for rotten eggs! Don't even save them in your fridge or hard drive.