You said “The WSJ, The New York Times, and other major newspapers have been given early production models of the iPhone” but I think iPad is what you meant.

I doubt that advertisers are paying $400,000.00 per month without thinking that they how many iPads have been pre-ordered.  Somebody clearly thinks that he knows something.  Who those somebodies are, what is the source of their information, and whether they are correct, remains to be seen.

why should I pay $630 for an Ipad and $18 a month for access to ONE newspaper when for less I can buy a more versatile ACER notebook with a bigger screen and get access to ALL newspapers for $0 a month? These publishers are applying the old newspaper model to the ipad which means that they are going down in flames!

These publishers are applying the old newspaper model to the ipad which means that they are going down in flames!

In the first 12 months after the iPad’s release there will be lot of paradigm shifting without a clutch.

It’ll be entertaining.

why should I pay $630 for an Ipad and $18 a month for access to ONE newspaper when for less I can buy a more versatile ACER notebook with a bigger screen and get access to ALL newspapers for $0 a month? These publishers are applying the old newspaper model to the ipad which means that they are going down in flames!

Wall Street Journal is _not_ free from any device, and never has, including from the Acer notebook.

People are going to buy this thing.  They’ll do it, just like they bought the iphone.  They’ll buy it because it’s going to be user friendly, simple and elegant.  The other crap won’t matter.  How you can do the same thing on an ACER won’t matter, because YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO DO THE SAME THING.

I find this interesting on two accounts. 1) It’s the first data point (that I’ve seen) on a price for digital vs. print subscriptions.  2) It means that even conservative publishers like Murdoch aren’t going to try to hold the line on price and claim that digital and print should be the same price. I would guess that we will see similar or larger discounts for other publications.

How you can do the same thing on an ACER won’t matter, because YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO DO THE SAME THING.

Exactly right. The iPad is not a product it’s an environment. It’s the product AND iBooks, AND the periodicals, AND the AppStore etc. etc. Assuming everything works as advertised, you simply won’t be able to put that package together on a NetBook or even on some hypothetical Android or Win7 product.

Since most online newspapers, like the NYTimes, use Flash for their embedded videos & graphics, the popularity of the iPad platform will IMHO become a powerful lever forcing those online newspapers (to say nothing of many other blogpages, such as The Mac Observer) to finally start using HTML5, instead!

your inline adds are really annoying so I won’t be back to your site.

What a deal!

Kindle is only $14.99 monthly.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Wall-Street-Journal/dp/B000FDJ0FS/ref=pd_sim_dbs_kinc_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

I think that’s also the price on the other e-Readers like Nook and Sony, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the curious.

while the online subscription price of the paper version, including delivery, is currently only $9.92 monthly.

https://www.wallstreetjournal.com/Gryphon/jsp/retentionController.jsp?page=10072

Guess it would have been too much work to look that up before writing the article, eh?

Are you kidding?  No thank you.  I dont have a dime to give for subscriptions to anything anymore.  If people need my money, they can go to Dr. Obama and get it from him now.

Since most online newspapers, like the NYTimes, use Flash for their embedded videos & graphics, the popularity of the iPad platform will IMHO become a powerful lever forcing those online newspapers (to say nothing of many other blogpages, such as The Mac Observer) to finally start using HTML5, instead!

Here’s a little inside information for you… The thing that concerns the publishers more than whether HTLM5 or Flash will rule the future is what is to be done with the Flash data they produced in the past. Many pubs have from years to about a decade of Flash video, interactive diagrams, animations and other Flash content in their archives. It wasn’t cheap to produce, but it’s dirt cheap to continue to deliver and monetize. Unless Steve Jobs is conducting a personal jihad against all your content assets…

Buy your Acer netbook, I hope you enjoy it. But you won’t get the WSJ for free, no one does. You also won’t get any of the other goodies that come with the iPad, like the App Store, or the iBook Store. With your Acer, you have to deal with Windows. Does anyone want to deal with Windows?

$17.99 for the WSJ, no thank you. However I might pay that for the Paper of Record if I like the format. Otherwise I’ll read the NYT on Safari, without they do away with their web page.

“Are you kidding?  No thank you.  I dont have a dime to give for subscriptions to anything anymore.  If people need my money, they can go to Dr. Obama and get it from him now.”

So Jason, just how much has the health care law taken out of your pocket so far? You can’t even afford 60 cents a day to read a newspaper? WOW! How are you going to pay for the mandatory health insurance?

If that $17.99/month subscription also got me access to the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, the Guardian and Wired magazine, then that would be interesting.

But $17.99/month for a single newspaper is doomed to fail. That’s almost as much as I pay for my internet!

Dumb post of the day award!  Woot!!  Tying to unrelated issues together.  The health care law hasn’t taken anything out of his pocket.

So Jason, just how much has the health care law taken out of your pocket so far? You can’t even afford 60 cents a day to read a newspaper? WOW! How are you going to pay for the mandatory health insurance?

Carrying an iPad with the WSJ will become a status symbol.  People will pay what’s necessary to give the desired impression.

why should I pay $630 for an Ipad and $18 a month for access to ONE newspaper when for less I can buy a more versatile ACER notebook

Because once you’ve paid for your ACER laptop you’ll be the proud owner… of an ACER laptop.  Man, that says it all.

Because once you’ve paid for your ACER laptop you’ll be the proud owner… of an ACER laptop.  Man, that says it all.

Right. With the $300+ you save, you can buy 9 of these. Still not as affective as carrying an iPad though.

I agree with geoduck, I can’t wait until we all paradigm shift without a clutch and drill down to the granular level and leverage the vertical SWOT analysis of the ipad.

No way.  These newspaper people are in denial.  Just dumb.

What they should do is charge $1 per day.

No way.  These newspaper people are in denial.  Just dumb.

What they should do is charge $1 per day.

Yes they could be making up to $31 a month per subscription instead of $17.99

Seriously I wonder how people would react if the subscription was $0.60 per day instead of $17.99 a month.

I already have an online subscription to the WSJ…why should I pay for yet another subscription just to access it on the iPad?

I already have an online subscription to the WSJ…why should I pay for yet another subscription just to access it on the iPad?

You could probably access your current WSJ subscription via Safari on the iPad.

I notice that from June Rupert Murdoch will charge one pound per day in the UK for access to The Times. (I can’t locate the story now, but I think I’ve got that right)
Seems quite expensive, but if it’s a success then I expect prices will rise.
Quite a risky move for the publishers, IMO.

mactoid said:I already have an online subscription to the WSJ…why should I pay for yet another subscription just to access it on the iPad?

Sir Harry Flashman said: You could probably access your current WSJ subscription via Safari on the iPad.

Since (almost) all iPhone apps are supposed to be able to run on the iPad (in low-def), I don’t see why your iPhone WSJ app’s subscription run wouldn’t exactly as it does (in low-def) on your iPad when you transfer that app over to it (i.e. - without having to resort to using Safari, which BTW, may require a separate WSJ subscription from your iPhone’s WSJ subscription).

Currently, I’m paying $52/yr for the WSJ via a special. That is at the edge of my limit.  There is too much free stuff out there and accessible.  Granted business models will change.
However, like today, most people will subscribe to a limited number of publications depending on the cost and value. The pie is only so big.
One would like to believe that these people are looking at revenue and cost figures. We all know that production and delivery costs are much lower, and advertising money is shifting to the web.
To charge “equivalent” rates for web access is a going out of business strategy imho.  The competition is infinitely greater and delivery is not an issue.

Kuma