Wall Street Journal Adds 200,000 Mobile-Device Subscribers

WSJ: "The Wall Street Journal has added 200,000 paying subscribers who access the newspaper via mobile devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad and Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle."

Time Inc. Strikes Blows for Publishers in Standoff with Apple

Jeff Bercovici - Mixed Media - Forbes:

For Time Inc., the world’s biggest magazine company, the quickest way to get it titles onto iPad screens may be getting them onto other tablets first.

While other publishers wrangle with Apple over the ins and outs of subscription sales in the iTunes store — How big a cut does Apple get to keep? Who gets control of the consumer’s information? Should the customer get to choose? — Time Inc. is moving ahead diagonally, making deals with the makers of other devices in hopes of gaining leverage in its negotiations with Apple.

Today, Sports Illustrated introduced an “All Access” subscription plan that will allow readers to pay one price to read the magazine in print, online, on Samsung Galaxy tablets and on Android phones. Although newspapers including The Wall Street Journal already offer such an option, SI is the first magazine to do so, according to managing editor Terry McDonell. The news comes just in time for the magazine’s swimsuit issue, its biggest annual seller. ...

Free Content at Starbucks

Well, you'll still have to pay for the content of the coffee cup. But as of July 1st, something called the "Starbuck's Digital Network" will give in-store customers free access to such paid sites and services as the Wall Street Journal, Apple's iTunes, USA TODAY, ZAGAT, etc. The list includes the New York Times - which presumably means that Starbucks customers will be allowed to do an end-run around that publication's impending pay-wall restrictions. There will also now be no arbitrary time limit to instore free WiFi usage. (Up to now, there has been a two hour limit.) Find the Starbucks press release here.

Will the iPad Mean the End of Free Online News?

Well, will it? Rupert Murdoch has a thought or two. So do the gremlins at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.