Two possible directions for digital journalism were unveiled Wednesday. One, from The New York Times, is called News.me, and it’s a social news service optimized for tablets. The other is the delayed release of the News Corp. iPad publication, The Daily.
The two products take dramatically different approaches to providing tablet readers with news and feature stories.
‘Did You See This?’
News.me, developed jointly by the Times and technology incubator Betaworks, will be released initially for the iPad, but will eventually be available for any web-enabled device. It’s a social news-reading application that offers news that the people you follow on Twitter are reading.
The articles are filtered based on the frequency with which given stories are shared and clicked. A user signs in to his or her Twitter account, and sees photos of the people being followed. A tap on a photo brings up the stories in that person’s Twitter stream. A tap, or a “reverse pinch,” on the story’s excerpt brings it full screen.
Stories are culled from Twitter as well as from bit.ly, a Betaworks-funded company that provides shortened versions of billions of shared URLs every month. The News.me approach is being compared by some observers to Flipbook, a startup that offers a tablet-optimized newspaper based on stories your friends like.
Brad Shimmin, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said he “loved” the Flipbook approach of tying news into one’s personal network of friends and interests.
He noted that Facebook updates frequently say something on the order of “did you see this?” The News.me approach, he said, duplicates the functionality of Facebook and other services, but could help that sharing become more meaningful.
‘Falling Pharaoh’
The Times said a subscription fee will be charged, as it will pay license fees for the displayed content. Shimmin said the success of the…