'The Daily' launch: iPad-only newspaper reported to have cost $30 million in development!

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By Salar Golestanian @ Wednesday, February 02, 2011 :: 11:34 PM :: 646 Views :: 0 Comments ::

Today, Rupert Murdoch is introducing The Daily, his foray into an iPad-only newspaper after months of rumours and delays. Question, is it worth the wait... and the reported $30 million in development costs?“New times demand new journalism,” Murdoch says. The challenge he says, is to “take the best of traditional journalism—competitive shoe leather journalism, a sceptical eye, and combine it with the best technology such as 360 degree photographs. The iPad demands that we completely rethink our craft.”

Available from the Apple App Store for $.99 a week or $40 a year, Murdoch suggests that a growing population of news consumers are no longer reading print or even watch TV. His aim with The Daily is to combine “the art of great newspapers” with the latest of technology. “The Daily is not a legacy brand moving from the print to the digital world. But it is brand new and aims to experiment. Murdoch believes The Daily will be the model for new approach in how stories are told.”

A new edition will come out every day, with updates throughout the day. it will feature a carousel navigation that looks like Coverflow, an dinclude video and 360-degree photographs. Apparently the operating costs are half a million dollars a week.

Apparently Since there is no trucks and no printing costs, The Daily will cost 14 cents a day or about $1 a week. The first two weeks are free, thanks to a sponsorship by Verizon. You will be able to download it live at noon ET.

Murdoch was asked why he thinks it is better to charge a subscription versus gaining a larger audience via free downloads and selling that larger audience to advertisers, who are lining up anyway because their ads look so much better in an iPad app. “I think they will pay much less per thousand if it was free,” says Murdoch. “We feel this is better for advertisers and will draw a better class of advertisers at a better rate.”

I have not been able to download it to my iPad yet. But as soon as I do i will blog about this.