Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson spoke at Columbia University on Thursday, and he noted that the magazine puts stuff on its covers to sell copies and that its iPad app sales have fallen since it was first introduced.
Zeke Turner of Women’s Wear Daily writes, “Wired’s iPad app hasn’t been performing as well as it did at launch, though. Now it’s reaching about 20,000 to 30,000 readers a month, he said, showing the students a bar graph of sales through December. The first issue of Wired on the iPad sold more than 100,000 copies, but those numbers are down more than 70 percent.
“‘I think it’s going to stay there until subscriptions are announced,’ he explained. ‘You may ask, when is that going to happen and how is that going to happen, but I won’t be able to talk about it.
“‘Clearly, we’re in a holding pattern now waiting for Google and Apple and others,’ Anderson continued. He mentioned that he wasn’t able to comment on negotiations with Apple over different subscription programs three times during his speech and the question-and-answer period after. He said he’d like to see the iPad app offered to Wired print subscribers at a 100 percent discount. ‘Lack of a [subscription] offer: number-one issue,’ he said. ‘Drives people crazy, drives us crazy.'”
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