[JGowan's 2¢]
I just can't see people paying between 18 and 30 dollars a month for newspaper subscriptions on the ipad. Given the fact you can get all the news you want for free through safari on the ipad, I don't think the content in either the Wall Street Journal or New York Times is that much superior to warrant charging that much for it.
This isn't MAD MAGAZINE trying to get $18-30 a month, it's the NYT and WSJ.
Let's take the New York Times...
Right now you get 12 weeks of service for Daily Service (including Sunday) of actual paper for $7.40 a week if you pay by credit card. That's 50% off for the first 3 months... then it jumps to $15 a week (or $60 monthly) -- that's real trees, real ink, delivery drivers galore and finally someone to deliever it to you. So basically, if NYT wanted to charge $30 monthly, they'd be letting you have the introductory price for now on. Sounds fair. I think $10 would be fairer and here's why...
Right now, Ads in the paper --> are they even looked at? They're glanced at and if it's something you're not not interested in, you turn the page. The iPad is a new breed of Advertising because of the possibility of the page "coming alive" and all of the social networking aspects. Most people are going to pay a lot more attention to them, I believe. I certainly will. But the advertisers will have to get clever quickly. Also, if the product is able to be bought on the internet, they could link to the product with a discount for buying from the ad itself. This could really be a boon for retail.
So $10 is a better price mainly because the ads have a better chance of being seen. There's no physical costs. Also, chances are, at least initially I believe, you're not going to have a many people canceling their home service to get the digital version. Some yes. I think what this will do, if it's priced right is get subscribers by the thousands and eventually the hundreds of thousands who normally would never subscribe to the paper. Ever. I would imagine that the average subscriber and reader of the Times is 55 at least and probably 60 and over. They consume the news differently and always have. That's why the newspaper is dying. Not because people are getting all their news from TV or the internet. Mostly yes, but... it's because it's more convenient. People are willing to pay more for what they want if it takes the hassle out of the situation. Convenience Stores on the corner are a perfect example.
Enter the iPad --> people will pay for content. People want to be informed. Most do anyway. I want to be able to simply never have to throw away my magazines ever again, but look forward to the day when, with Spotlight, I can search my Magazines for a certain subject and up pop all of the entries from past issues. Oh -- this just occurred to me. What if a month after you saw an ad on your iPad in one of several magazines that you subscribed, you suddenly needed a certain product. Few people would hunt through real issues, but if you could Spotlight the product and it would instantly deliver that ad complete with link to a discounted product -- wow. Suddenly your advertising is worth so much more.
[/JGowan's 2¢]
