WSJ iPad app gets rave review

Media consultant Ken Doctor likes the strategy behind The Wall Street Journal‘s iPad application pay strategy, as well as its functionality.

Doctor writes, “One early review from a trusted source raises some good questions. He’s blown away by the Wall Street Journal, free for a limited time on the iPad, before going to a $17.29 monthly price point for non-print subscribers. ‘There’s no reason for me to get the print paper anymore. I can read the Journal — just like this newspaper — over a sandwich at lunch.’ Among the rave features: video (from the WSJ Digital Network, a smart play to combine video assets from its major brands of WSJ, Barrons, Marketwatch and AllThingsD) that reveals itself from ‘photo’ positions in the newspaper-like pages, section metaphors that mimic print and interactive ads that pop up every third page flick. The ad intrusiveness seems to borrow a metaphor from the video pre-rolls; you know, don’t bother the reader every time they take in a new unit of content, just every once in a while.

“The Journal’s path may combine the best of two worlds. One world is the paper, its metaphor of reading intact, which still makes more sense to many people than its online version; that’s the same struggle many newspapers have had — coming up with an intuitive web metaphor that worked. Second, the embrace of what the iPad advances in some revolutionarily intuitive ways: video, touch and social sharing.

“There are two things the Journal and all newspapers have to be concerned with, given the iPad: Failure and success. Failure is failure: just another platform that fails to create large new digital revenue streams. Success: If my friend is right, and he doesn’t need the WSJ paper anymore, how many readers will flee the print version — which still produces 80%+ revenue at all newspaper companies — for the iPad version? Success means managing, or attempting to manage, that transition right. Managing that transition is behind WSJ’s evolving pricing, which induces a headache if we try to figure it out today.”

Read more here. Talking Biz News had an opportunity to briefly review Saturday both the Journal and Bloomberg applications on the iPad and was impressed — when he could get it away from his wife and children.