Is Murdoch’s iPad-only newspaper a good idea?

by David Silverberg

Tablet PCs may soon be the new platform for newspapers, if Rupert Murdoch has his way. The media magnate recently announced he’ll create The Daily, a digital newspaper built especially for Apple’s iPad. Staffed with 100 writers and editors, The Daily is expected to launch in beta sometime in early 2011 and will cost 99 cents a week, or about $4.25 a month. As the name suggests, the publication will come out every day.

Murdoch says the newspaper will cover the U.S., from Hollywood to Washington. Also, as the New York Times reports, “The Daily will incorporate some material from the rest of the News Corporation — Fox Sports will provide some video, according to people putting together the prototype — but the plan is that a vast majority of the content will be original.”

But is this a smart approach? At first blush, it does seem progressive for the News Corp CEO: an app-centric media arm could be a signal of things to come, capitalizing on the mobile news frenzy that can only get hotter . We are already seeing iPad-friendly issues from the likes of Wired, so why shouldn’t a upstart newspaper go iPad only? A tablet PCs offers the opportunity to include rich media and live updates. The Daily could truly be a living organism, evolving as often as the hourly news does.

Also, consumers are used to be paying for content on their tablet PCs and smartphones, so it’s not a massive stretch to ask users to fork over $1 a week for daily news. Then again, a lot of the content may be available elsewhere free, so Murdoch and company will truly have to publish engrossing original content readers can’t find anywhere else.

The Daily faces some major challenges, though. If it truly wants to be a next-gen product, the paywall could bog it down irrevocably. You know all those links of stories you enjoy sharing on Twitter and Facebook? You share free articles, right? But The Daily is for subscribers only, so its sharing functions will be hampered by a paywall. Perhaps Murdoch envisions a future where people will always pay for news – and the right to publicize those articles to friends – but that space is too immature to make any solid predictions of what’s to come. Readers might be turned off by The Daily’s paywall because they can just visit their community newspaper on Safari and get the news they want free.

We’ll keep an eye on The Daily’s developments and keep you posted on any major news when it breaks.