In early iPad reviews, good to 'game changer'

Among those published today for Apple's new tablet -- being released Saturday -- most influential-of-all technology reviewers Walter Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal raved: "I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop."

The iPad is priced from $499 to $829, depending on features including whether it's equipped for Wi-Fi only, or fully mobile connections via AT&T's network. Here's a roundup, plus videos, with emphasis on the iPad's potential for helping publishers.



Mossberg
He writes: I was able to try a pre-release version of The Wall Street Journal's new iPad app (which I had nothing to do with designing), and found it gorgeous and highly functional -- by far the best implementation of the newspaper I have ever seen on a screen. Unlike the Journal's Web site, or its smart-phone apps, the iPad version blends much more of the look and feel of the print paper into the electronic environment. Other newspapers and magazines have announced plans for their own, dramatically more realistic iPhone apps.

David Pogue, The New York Times
He writes: There’s an e-book reader app, but it’s not going to rescue the newspaper and book industries (sorry, media pundits). The selection is puny (60,000 titles for now). You can’t read well in direct sunlight. At 1.5 pounds, the iPad gets heavy in your hand after awhile (the Kindle is 10 ounces). And you can’t read books from the Apple bookstore on any other machine — not even a Mac or iPhone.


Edward Baig, USA Today
He writes: You can change pages on the iPad by tapping the screen: The page turns naturally, like a book. On Kindle, you have to press physical buttons and wait an instant while the page refreshes. Rotate the iPad, and you'll see two pages side by side. Newspaper and magazine layouts look vastly superior on the iPad compared with Kindle. The iPad is backlit, so you can read in the dark. You have to supply a reading light with Kindle.

Related: iPad reviews in the news

What's your gut feeling about iPad's potential to aid our industry? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

By the numbers | Sizing up a top advertising rival

[His nickname: "Zuck"]

From today's Wall Street Journal story about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's slow-mo plans to sell shares to the public. The twenty-something owns more than 25% of the giant social media company he started in a Harvard dorm room, the WSJ says. Other numbers:

2

in billions of dollars, possible 2010 revenue

3

board seats Zuckerberg controls

5

number of board members

10

in billions of dollars, Facebook's recent valuation

25

Zuckerberg's age

400

in millions, number of users

1,200

number of employees

2004

year Facebook founded

How many times a week to you visit Facebook? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

'Anonymity is no guarantee in online postings'

Excerpts from a Chicago Tribune story published today, where I was interviewed about the pitfalls of posting anonymous comments on blogs and other websites:

Write something threatening or defamatory and the mask of anonymity can be removed. It's technologically simple to track the source of a comment; the more difficult question is when it should be done. Add to the complicated stew of issues an Internet culture of free-wheeling commentary, and the results can be unpredictable.

"There are purists who think the Internet is a fundamentally different medium and that the old rules — that is, vetting letters to the editor — should not be applied to comments," says Jim Hopkins, a former reporter based in San Francisco who runs several media blogs. "I've been hit with the same criticism. If you limit these comments in any way, (critics say) you're engaging in censorship."

In a departure from past practice, I now review all comments before they get published, sometimes rejecting those that are unsuitable. How do you feel about that policy? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Image: today's Tribune, Newseum]

After just nine months, MySpace CEO steps down

From a new Wall Street Journal story:

Owen Van Natta (left), the Silicon Valley veteran who was hired nine months ago to revitalize News Corp.'s MySpace, has stepped down as chief executive officer, adding to the turbulence at the struggling social-networking site.

Two MySpace executives, Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn, were promoted to co-presidents, effectively replacing the 40-year-old Van Natta, News Corp. said yesterday. The change is effective immediately.

The departure of its top executive highlights the ongoing struggles of MySpace, which has gone from a major expected growth engine for News Corp. to a fix-it project in its struggle against rival Facebook, where Van Natta had been an executive.

Related: The New York Times account of the shake-up

Marketing 101 | Follow me on Facebook, Twitter

On Facebook, I'm Jim Hopkins in San Francisco. On Twitter, it's Gannett Blog.

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Apple tablet | Papers live-blogging today's launch

[CEO Steve Jobs holds device in this New York Times photo]

I'm not at this morning's San Francisco debut for Apple's tablet, the much-hyped multimedia device that's expected to help newspaper publishers grab new paying readers. But the three national dailies are reporting details on what we now know has been dubbed the iPad, as the event continues unfolding; it started at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT:

• USA Today's Technology Live
• The Wall Street Journal's Digits
• The New York Times' Bits

Here's the WSJ's first video of the event, via Fox News:



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Report: HarperCollins in e-book talks with Apple

The News Corp. book publishing subsidiary is negotiating with Apple to make electronic books available for the introduction of a new tablet device from Apple, according to people familiar with the situation, posing a challenge to Amazon.com, The Wall Street Journal is now reporting. "HarperCollins is expected to set the prices of the e-books, which would have added features, with Apple taking a percentage of sales. Details haven't been ironed out,'' the WSJ says.

Stockton set to charge for online news today

In the latest foray into asking readers to pay for online access, News Corp.'s Record in Stockton, Calif., is scheduled to lower a paywall on its website today. The shift was announced in late December. Here's today's front page:

The Record

• Stockton, Calif.
• Publisher: Roger Coover
• Editor: Mike Klocke
• Contact us list

Got a News Corp. front page to recommend? Find it in the Newseum's page one database, then post a link in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Image: Newseum]

Is Times whistling past graveyard over WSJ move?

New York Times reporters say there's not a lot of talk in their newsroom about The Wall Street Journal's soon-to-launch New York City bureau, according to New York magazine. "The Times already has the apparatus to dominate city coverage," one staffer told the weekly. "That takes years to build, and the Journal doesn't have any of that."

The NYT was first to break the news about the Journal's move onto its backyard. New York says: "While originally reported to launch in April, it looks like the bureau will begin reporting its own stories by February. Its goal is to compete with the Times on its own turf: the news, politics, and culture of New York City (and State!). Starting with a reported staff of 12 and a budget of $15 million, obviously that's a tall order."

The magazine is wondering whether Sewell Chan's recently announced transfer to the NYT's Washington beat from the successful City Room Blog is good news for the Journal's nascent bureau.

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Protecting local flank, NYT expands City Room Blog

As The Wall Street Journal moves deeper onto its local turf, The New York Times said today that it's beefing up its two-year-old City Room Blog, with more features and a new top editor. "In the coming weeks,'' the NYT says in a statement, "City Room will roll out a series of new features, including daily columns that will delve deeply into the workings of major New York City institutions like the police department, the schools and the courts, and an ambitiously expanded daily look at what the city's blogosphere is talking about."

Sewell Chan (left), the founding bureau chief, will be moving to a new assignment within the Times. His replacement will be Andy Newman, a veteran Times reporter, "who has excelled in both the print newspaper and its online enhancements,'' the paper says.

The Times' move follows the WSJ's reported decision last fall to open a New York City bureau, staffed with about a dozen reporters.

City Room mixes original reporting with reader conversations. Among the website's most active blogs, it posted 3,314 items and received 82,535 comments last year. Since inception, it has consistently ranked among the paper's top five most popular blogs.

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[Photo: NYT Co.]

How you may be reading newspapers by March

[iTablet? One of many mock-ups of Apple's rumored new device]

From a just-posted Wall Street Journal story: Apple plans to unveil a new multimedia tablet device later this month, but doesn't plan on shipping the product until March, people briefed by the company told the paper. Among many possible uses: reading newspapers. Price: around $1,000, the WSJ says, adding: "The tablet is expected to be a multimedia device that will let people watch movies and television shows, play games, surf the Internet and read electronic books and newspapers."

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Farewell | Another newspaper blog bites the dust

The author of McClatchy Watch called it quits yesterday, after 27 months of maintaining his blog about the publisher of the Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and other dailies. From his final "Time to exit" post:

Newspaper watchdog bloggers will mostly be hobbyists who don't do it for the money. For the past several months I have averaged 2,000 hits on weekdays, about half that on weekends. Not bad for this little blog but not a solid business model -- my monthly income from this blog was never more than about one sixth of my mortgage payment.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

How blogging makes you crazy -- if you choose

If I hesitate to resume blogging, it is the knowledge that it can consume your life -- if you allow it to. Always-on journalism, where writers use web-based software to report and publish stories, means you can work 24/7 -- unless you establish boundaries and sensible work hours. Last April, for example, I posted 310 times to one of my other sites, Gannett Blog -- an average of more than 10 posts a day. That's nuts. But not so uncommon.

In the new movie Julie & Julia, a young journalist in Queens nearly destroys her marriage when she becomes convinced that her blog's readers had become vitally dependent on her for something ultimately inconsequential: kitchen recipes. Nikki Finke, the powerful blogger about the film industry, is portrayed in a New Yorker magazine profile in October as a vengeful woman who rarely leaves her home to meet any of the industry titans she so often attacks. Ditto for writer Emily Gould, whose controversial New York Times Magazine cover story last year shows that she, too, cycled through two relationships as she allowed herself to be drawn too-deep into her job as a blogger for leading media gossip site Gawker.

Readers: What's it like to be a 21st century worker, where BlackBerries and other devices mean you are expected to work anywhere, anytime? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Image: the NYT cover for Gould's "Blog-Post Confidential" article]