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'The Daily' Lays Off 30% of Staff, Switches to Vertical-Only Design to Cut Costs
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News is changing.
Topics are more specialized and specific.
Just take a look at this site : MacRumors - Free and with a specific purpose.
The Days of being feed whatever BS Rupert Murdock wants shoved up your ass will be at an end within 15 years.
Topics are more specialized and specific.
Just take a look at this site : MacRumors - Free and with a specific purpose.
The Days of being feed whatever BS Rupert Murdock wants shoved up your ass will be at an end within 15 years.
Seriously?
How much time can it really take to do the horizontal AND vertical formats? Other than when they've got an odd shaped element, don't they just flow around them?
If not, it's time to rewrite the code...
Actually, in my head, I can picture some things that wouldn't work, but at the same time, I'm thinking those are the scrolling pages that didn't work for me (personally) anyways...
Gary
How much time can it really take to do the horizontal AND vertical formats? Other than when they've got an odd shaped element, don't they just flow around them?
If not, it's time to rewrite the code...
Actually, in my head, I can picture some things that wouldn't work, but at the same time, I'm thinking those are the scrolling pages that didn't work for me (personally) anyways...
Gary
The difference being that advertising will continue to invade our lives and our usage information will be sold to the highest bidder. Think of all the analytics companies making bucket loads off of your internet habits. I don't know what's worse, to be honest. Maybe I'll start buying newspapers again...if I can be asked.
I think Murdoch deserves credit for pushing into this area early and strongly with the WSJ (which still has relatively decent journalism), "The Daily" (which I've never actually seen) as well as the electronic versions of some of the British papers.
The quality of the journalism is a totally separate issue and the recent controversies in the UK regarding journalistic ethics have done the reputation of all of Murdoch's properties no good. I know they're going to spin-off the newspapers, but I think Murdoch himself needs to retire so that they can begin the slow process of restoring their reputation (regardless of the politics).
I personally despise Fox "news" and I think it actually does damage to our society, but it is very successful. And in an age of 1000 cable channels, I'm not sure it really has as much impact as they like to think it has.
But the journalistic right doesn't monopolize unethical or unprofessional behavior. While not on the same scale as the lapses in the UK, I thought the New York Times reporter who was screaming at Romney yesterday behaved disgustingly - at the level of a supermarket rag reporter or some obnoxious blogger or idiot from the Howard Stern show.
The quality of the journalism is a totally separate issue and the recent controversies in the UK regarding journalistic ethics have done the reputation of all of Murdoch's properties no good. I know they're going to spin-off the newspapers, but I think Murdoch himself needs to retire so that they can begin the slow process of restoring their reputation (regardless of the politics).
I personally despise Fox "news" and I think it actually does damage to our society, but it is very successful. And in an age of 1000 cable channels, I'm not sure it really has as much impact as they like to think it has.
But the journalistic right doesn't monopolize unethical or unprofessional behavior. While not on the same scale as the lapses in the UK, I thought the New York Times reporter who was screaming at Romney yesterday behaved disgustingly - at the level of a supermarket rag reporter or some obnoxious blogger or idiot from the Howard Stern show.
Savings on vertical layout?
In their defense (probably the only time I'll ever defend News Corp!), I've done web design for different layouts, and it isn't trivial. Not conceptually different on iPad. They will save some effort limiting to vertical layout.
That said, the savings might be 10-20% of the layout effort. Which must be <1% of the cost of production. Yet it's a highly visible sign of a dying publication. Really stupid management decision. Natch.
I and many others will be cancelling our subscriptions soon. It's the free market speaking, Rupert ;-)
In their defense (probably the only time I'll ever defend News Corp!), I've done web design for different layouts, and it isn't trivial. Not conceptually different on iPad. They will save some effort limiting to vertical layout.
That said, the savings might be 10-20% of the layout effort. Which must be <1% of the cost of production. Yet it's a highly visible sign of a dying publication. Really stupid management decision. Natch.
I and many others will be cancelling our subscriptions soon. It's the free market speaking, Rupert ;-)
As someone who does e-zine layout in a few platforms (Adobe DPS, Mag Plus, Pixel Mags) I actually hate two formats for one mag. The design is constantly being homogenized to make it work in both instances. I can't tell you how many times I've had to make text headlines smaller, pick a square photo that's worse than the vertical one, or just bang my head against a wall solving an HTML 5 design all because of this. I prefer apps and e-zines who lock me as invariably it has a better chance for a worthwhile user interface. (Plus you don't have to memorize two different interface layouts for lots of apps)
But I can understand if others feel differently.
PS - Landscape for the win. You can always scroll up, which gives you more space for possible artwork.
Agreed that this makes the design problem harder. There are always compromises -- whether you work in landscape, portrait or even both. The MVC model of content/presentation independence is really only a vision, a goal rarely acheivable in the real world.
Still, as both a content and a software designer, I really admired the Daily's effort to tackle design for both formats -- since the iPad was really the first (electronic) presentation device that the reader could easily and interactively change the format of. There are some real design wins for the reader: e.g. if you know they can rotate to landscape, then a movie trailer or panoramic photo embedded into a long article of mostly text can still be appreciated to the maximum capability of the device.
Of course, that was yesterday. Today the Daily has just given up. I hope someone else (and someone with better reporting!) takes up the design challenge.
So... their business model is "sell information that is already free elsewhere" - and it was NOT working?
And when they re-think their strategy, their solution to "no one wants to pay for free information" is to cripple the app and piss off the customers that actually *do* pay?
Really?
And when they re-think their strategy, their solution to "no one wants to pay for free information" is to cripple the app and piss off the customers that actually *do* pay?
Really?
if it looks like a FOX, smells like a FOX, sounds like a FOX...
The Daily headlines pushed to my iPad this AM:
"Today: Obama campaign wants $$$, Chick-fil-A gets a lot of love, and Taylor Swift likes those Kennedy Boys"
The Daily headlines pushed to my iPad this AM:
"Today: Obama campaign wants $$$, Chick-fil-A gets a lot of love, and Taylor Swift likes those Kennedy Boys"
Difference is that the Guardian actually has great journalists with engaging stories to tell.
It doesn't really matter if the app it self isn't of the same standard, content is king.
