- Are QR codes ready for mainstream adoption? Although the editorial content of the Irish Daily Star isn’t particularly interesting in my opinion, one half-page advertisement on page fourteen of yesterday’s publication caught my attention. The advertisement contained nothing more than an image of one man’s bald head with a note saying “Warning: Coming to a head near you”, and cleverly a QR code placed neatly in the top-right-hand corner. So once again we ask the question - are QR codes popular enough to use in mainstream media?
- The Guardian releases updated subscription-based iPhone app The Guardian have today released an updated version of their iPhone app that now employs a subscription-based model instead of a one-off fee.
- Apple delays The Daily launch by “weeks” Apple and News Corporation have delayed the launch of The Daily, an iPad-only publication, that was reported to be unveiled later this month on January 19th. Now, it is believed that this launch date will be delayed, but only by “weeks, not months".
- Social news curation site paper.li raises $2.1 million Paper.li, a site that “organizes links shared on Twitter and Facebook into an easy to read newspaper-style format” has just raised $2.1 million in funding. SmallRivers, the Swiss company behind paper.li will receive capital from Highland Capital Partners, SoftBank Capitol, and Endeavour Vision.
- Murdoch and Jobs will launch iPad newspaper later this month Rubert Murdoch and Steve Jobs are expected to appear together on stage later this month to launch Murdoch’s new iPad-only publication known as The Daily. According to Forbes journalist Jeff Bercovici this launch date could be January 19th, 2011.
- Irish Times website traffic up 82% Traffic to The Irish Times website has seen an increase of 82% for the twelve months prior to November 2010, when compared to the previous year. This figures highlights the growing trend of users wanting to source news information online.
- Newspapers to become “insignificant” in Ireland by 2027 Futurist Ross Dawson has released a “Newspaper Extinction Timeline” where he maps out how quickly we can expect newspapers to remain significant around the world. The first nations to leave behind the much loved newspaper and embrace media consumption majorly through digital devices will be the USA in 2017, followed by the UK and Iceland in 2019.
- News of the World to go behind a paywall next month News International, a British newspaper publisher owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, is to place a third title, The News of the World, behind an online paywall next month.