Steve Jobs Apple iPad will not save journalism

June 3, 2010

At the All Points D Conference on Tuesday, Steve Jobs was asked the now all-too-familar question: “Will the iPad save journalism.” Rather than chuckle or make the All Points D interviewers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher appear stupid, Jobs gave an solution that was essentially feeding them catnip. Work mentioned:

Charlie Sheen’s iPad will have a whole lot more than Old Media apps

In the All Points D Conference on Tuesday, Steve Jobs was asked the now all-too-familar question: “Will the iPad conserve journalism.” Instead of chuckle or make the All Things D interviewers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher look stupid, Work gave an answer that was basically feeding them catnip. Work said:

 We have lots of goals for it, but one of my beliefs very strongly is that any democracy depends on a free, wholesome press…I think we need editorial now much more than ever,” he said. One way to overcome the economic hurdle is for people to pay for content material, he added, and the iPad offers a way to have applications instead of just static web pages.”

Those statements prove Steve Jobs himself is so in love with his elegant creation the iPad, he thinks it can stop a tidal wave and maintain Charlie Sheen out of jail. The comments in the All Things D Conference also prove that Steve Work is old. He doesn’t really realize how much culture has changed because of the advent of the internet, demographic change, and web economics. All of this and Steve himself is still feeding the same monster that’s eating the press as this is written. All of this was evident to me in the Tech Crunch Disrupt Conference last ween in New York City, as I was talking to a WIRED Magazine representative about their new iPad app. All with the iPads were adjusted such that it looked as if the machine was just for WIRED. It looked like an electronic version of the magazine. But when you pressed the appropriate control, the WIRED content material went away and its app was in a sea of other iPad apps about the screen.

All iPad apps face the exact same life fate: individuals get excited about them, the app is hot, it builds a following, then its utilized, and as it’s, other apps are produced to compete against it, so it eventually becomes used much less and less and just one of a sea of apps about the machine.

And Aged Media expects to survive in that procedure? That’s silly. Additionally, and to rub salt in the wound this blogger produced, appropriate since Steve Jobs quipped that he didn’t wish to “see us descend into a nation of bloggers,” WIRED had not figured out how you can cost their iPad app to reflect content changes, according towards the rep I talked to.

The WIRED iPad app’s cost doesn’t include update pricing because WIRED had not figured out how you can do that as of this writing.

OK. So lets’ say they did figure it out. Here’s my query: how do you notify the user and get that individual to pay again for the WIRED content with the exact same energy they did so (assuming they do) when the app was very first released? Just saying they’ll may be the stuff of fools. The Program Dynamics of web and mobile user behavior is they won’t.

Why does an iPad media app have to be a paid affair? Why can’t a media company make a free app, stuff it with adds by sponsors, and promote the hell out of it? That would harm the “paywall” apps like WIRED’s, reducing their potential revenue and causing the app to get lost in that sea of icons I referred to.

Then, what’s to stop well-liked bloggers or any blogger from having their own free iPad app? Nothing. Following a time, the exact same System Dynamics of Internet choice, click demand, and oversupply of options will conspire to wreck Aged Media dreams that the iPad will conserve it.

And also the same bloggers Steve Work appears to discount will end up taking over his beloved iPad.

Stay tuned.

SF Gate