The print media world is watching with baited breath as Apple and News Corps’ launch The Daily, the first digital only newspaper app, at 4pm UK time at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
The Daily is the first nationwide American newspaper to be launched in almost 30 years, since USA Today's founding in 1982.
With a subscription price of 99 cents per week and a stable of 100 newly hired journalists from top publications nationwide, experts said The Daily could mark a new era for an industry that has spent decades trying to find a workable digital model.
"It's a fascinating case study," said Damon Kiesow, digital media fellow at the Poynter Institute journalism think tank. "For better or worse, we should be paying attention to it. We need to be trying, at this point, as many different things as we can."
The Daily’s digital concept resembles the classic newspaper model: a daily delivery comes in the wee hours of the morning and you won't find it anywhere else, including the Web.
"Except for the fact it's a digital paper, they're treating it just like a newspaper," said Kiesow, who has closely tracked The Daily's developments.
The partnership of Apple's ailing leader Steve Jobs with Murdoch may seem like a case of strange bedfellows, but their interests are perfectly aligned, Murdoch has been leading the charge in getting paid for content in the digital era."