Review: Newsweek Magazine iPad App

This is part of the Top Magazine iPad series

At first glance, it seems a bit strange that such a big name in the magazine industry as Newsweek would charge only half of what many other magazines are pricing their own iPad apps (usually on a $4.99 per issue basis). The download of the app itself is free, (and even comes with a free mini mag version featuring Obama), but after a short-lived play with the Newsweek app though, it soon became an unfortunate truth to me that the $2.99 pricing was probably just about acceptable. Perhaps it is to emulate the sleeker and minimalist look they’ve adopted for the website, but on the iPad, it kind of hits a flat note. Here’s a rating list of why.

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The Brand Journalist

When I was young I saw the clear distinction between brand content and journalism. The former were crumpled mail-shots. The latter: prestigious newspapers within which the mail shots dreamt of affording to sit.  Journalists were empowered beings, with loud content that reached the crowds.

Now, print is drowning in a media tsunami. This tsunami is a phenomenon of self-publishing; a giant wave washing away the monetary value of traditional media with the accessibility of social media.  With everyone allowed twitter publicity, the crowd’s din has become a roar.  Publicity is a norm; everyone has it. So where does the wondering, nomadic journalist go in this day and age? He should knock on the door of the brand houses. The tsunami might be swallowing up the value of print, but it is also drowning out the presence of brands online. Read more →

Reporting Robots: 3 Types of Journalistic Automation

Following on from “Lowering the Cost of Journalism“, this post looks in more details at the various ways that journalism can be automated. There are three main types of journalistic automation: Automated Process, Automated Generation, and Automated Aggregation.

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