Monday, May 14, 2012

"Web journey complete, FT switching off iOS app" - a trend that is troubling for many publishers...

The Financial Times is preparing to kill off its iPad and iPhone app for good, signalling its final conversion from executable-app to web-app publishing.

The news publisher launched a HTML5 web app and pulled its iOS app off iTunes Store in mid-2011 but left the iOS version usable by subscribers with it already installed.

The bottom line is that the reading/viewing public is fragmented as hell on how they like their information.

Guess that 'free model' didn't work, and the 'subscription model' didn't work, nor did the 'firewall model' work.

Nope. Everyone was so thrilled with the concept of free that they never realized that the 'free model' wasn't a model at all. It was simply free.

I can't even count the industries that have been devastated by the culture of free... and no end in sight. Disappointing as hell for those who actually think that IP is worth something. They learned stuff so that they could teach other people the stuff they learned... screw that. There are plenty of places where it is free now.

And pretty good.

So what is the model of the future? Taxpayer subsidized content delivery based on the 'NPR' model?

Nawww... we will come full circle and be back to gatekeepers and the foundation of institutions for our content.

We just may not recognize their new appearance... heh.

No comments: