The Guardian newspaper have released a iPhone App that allows subscribers to read the news in a format that is personalised and convenient. They are not charging for the content, you can access the guardian.co.uk perfectly well on the iPhone or any other internet enabled smart phone, for free.

This app is for sale at £2.39, and in December, it’s first month, it was downloaded 68,979 times. That is £164.859 income. This will have no doubt smashed the development costs, and will be turning a very tidy revenue stream that could amount to £2m per annually. This App is available in UK and US, and has been extended to the rest of Europe now, so that figure could increase further.

It is already possible to buy news for the Kindle, the same news that is available free online, and with the upcoming Apple tablet, there could be another commercialised format available.

My point being, no one will pay for news Mr Murdoch. There is such a thing as a free news story, so deal with it! We can watch it on TV, read it on the internet, read it on the tube and listen to it on the radio, without paying a penny for it.

If I buy a Sunday newspaper, I buy it because that particular format suits me that day, to maybe sit down for an hour, with a civilised cup of coffee in a quite cafe. Or more likely in my case, in a screaming warehouse in Tesco’s car park called Clown Town (It’s a kiddie thing). My usual preferred format is on the internet for free, but if you make another format more appealing to me, I am happy to pay for it, but not the news thanks.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.