iPad already impacting UK market
Jinfo Blog

7th April 2010

By Nancy Davis Kho

Item

At the risk of adding the last straw to the camel's back that is the public interest in reading more about the iPad, I'll do a quick roundup - seeing as the San Francisco Chronicle reported today that a British buyer paid US$5,500 for his iPad on EBay, more than 10 times the list price, (http://digbig.com/5bbjpw). Though it won't be available in the UK until later in April, some UK publishers are jumping aboard the iPad bandwagon now. That decision isn't without controversy. PaidContentUk's Robert Andrews reported on April 6 that the BBC News App for IPad is already #12 on the list of most popular free apps, offering " text news in English and other languages, social sharing, story videos, 60-second video bulletins, full-screen video, live radio, breaking news alerts and offline syncing.' (http://digbig.com/5bbjqa) That must smart to UK users waiting for a BBC app for their iPhones, Blackberrys, and Androids. Due to a protest from the Newspaper Publisher's Association, the BBC Trust has agreed to delay their planned foray into 'commercial' territory in the UK. When the Trust announced their apps for mobile devices back in February, NPA protested, saying that it undermines their ability to leverage economic opportunities in the emergent and very promising mobile space. Their reach doesn't extend to commercial activity outside of the UK, but they are standing firm on the BBC's distribution plans in the UK. The Trust pushed back, saying that their apps are essentially a repackaging of existing content and do not represent a threat to the members of the NPA. Or as Americans in the post Clinton years are fond of saying, 'It depends on what your definition of "is" is'. Meanwhile Rupert Murdoch can't get his content onto the iPad fast enough. In an interview by journalist Marvin Kalb at George Washington University earlier this week, the Guardian reported that Murdoch hailed the iPad as a saviour of newspaper journalism.( http://digbig.com/5bbjqd) '"I got a glimpse of the future last weekend with the Apple iPad. It is a wonderful thing,"' he was quoted as saying. The iPad's elegant graphical presentation potential certainly marries up well with Murdoch's series of announcements regarding the resurrection of paywalls in his media empire. First The Wall Street Journal and now The Times and the Sunday Times are expected to be available on a paid basis only; one way to convince readers inured to free news that it's worth paying for again is to make presentation more compelling, and early reviews of the iPad show it delivers. Finally, over at the International Digital Publishing format, the agency that oversees the .epub digital publishing format, they were scrambling to catch up with what the iPad will allow publishers to do with their printed words. PaidContent UK reports that the format's current lack of support for rich media, interactivity, and language localization is going to have to move along quickly to keep up with what both Apple and publishers anticipate will become an optimal eReader platform. http://digbig.com/5bbjqg

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