News Corporation's The Daily was to have been a vanguard of the future, based on the past -- a tablet-focused newspaper that could get us back to paying subscriptions for our regular news fix. Not enough of us were as enthralled with the retro-future concept, however. While CEO Rupert Murdoch calls The Daily a "bold experiment," he's shutting the publication down as of December 15th following sluggish growth that didn't match long-term expectations. The move may pay off for other divisions. As part of a larger spinoff of its publishing wing headed by Robert Thomson, News Corp is moving the all-digital outlet's resources and some of its staff (including Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo) into the considerably more paper-bound New York Post. In some senses, it wasn't hard to see a shutdown as a possibility. While Murdoch is more than a little fond of paywalls as an alternative to free, ad-based viewing, The Daily was counting on building a paid readership completely from scratch in a web-based era -- it's hard to compete with free.
[Source: Engadget]