'The Tablet Revolution' offers mixed prospects for news organizations

The Pew Research Center tonight released a wonderful study that uncovers all kinds of surprises related to 1,159 tablet users, and more specifically, 894 who read news on their tablets at least weekly. 

The study, officially titled "The Tablet Revolution and What It Means for the Future of News," was conducted in conjunction with Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism and The Economist Group, the British publishers who have been at the vanguard of paid-digital content initiatives. I think they got their money's worth. 

Tablet owners represent an affluent, educated demographic (Graphic: Pew Research Center).Some takeaways from tablet users:

• 11 percent of U.S. adults own "a tablet computer of some kind," this just 18 months after Apple launched the iPad. The study isn't specific on what brands make up tablets but indicates iPads are owned by the large majority of Brand is a factor in generating app downloads, but no necessarily for paying for news (Graphic: Pew Research Center).respondents, and questions how next month's launch of the Amazon Kindle will change usage and behavior by bringing a lower-cost alternative to the masses. 
• 77 percent use their tablets daily, and for an average of 90 minutes. Wow. 

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Zite raises bar on tablet news reading -- but where's the revenue?

I've been using a new iPad customized news app called Zite and I really like it.

Your personalizezd Zite homepage pulls in a mix of stories matching your preferencesZite blends Flipboard's dynamic feed-driving design and Pandora's thumbs-up/thumbs-down personalization. Zite says its app "is a free, personalized iPad magazine that understands what you like and gets smarter as you use it." That's a perfect description, and for me Zite has surged ahead of Flipboard, FLUD and Pulse as my tablet news reader of choice (although Flipboard's photo presentation is still a draw).

Like those other apps, Zite is simple to set up and use. You first choose any of several dozen top-level categories of interest, then let Zite draw your feeds from Twitter or Google Reader, or both, to seed those content categories. At that point, other sources are layered on as you rate content within those categories. Changing your categories is a snap: When I fired up the app Friday afternoon and saw zero info on the Japanese earthquake, I quickly added "World News" to my mix and, voila, I had intense tsunami coverage.

Each story page allows you to give it a thumbs up/down, ask for more content from that source, and share via email, Twitter and FacebookWhat makes Zite really excel is its diversity of content: Rather than giving extra weight to traditional news streams, it pulls from a wealth of rich, trusted and well-crafted content from tons of alternative sources.

And the content categories seem to fit iPad users: You are given the choice of Graphic Design & Typography and Web Design & User Experience, Journalism and publishing, Gadets and Technology. As anyone who cares about Graphic Design and Web Design knows, there are huge differences between the two, and thus should warrant separate categories. Traditional media, on teh other hand, would lump them together for convenience or ignorance.

The only real problems I had with Zite are:

• On launch day when the app's servers were smoking from an abundance of traffic (the downside of what appears to have been a great job of prelaunch outreach to ensure the tech journalContent comes from thousands of sources, a reminder there's lots of authoritative content outside of traditional medias had stories ready to go). But in the few days since, load times have been fast and clean, with zero crashes.
• A dearth of "local" content, at least for Bakersfield. I know Bakersfield isn't huge, but we learned last week we're the 9th largest city in California, with more than 350,000 people. But when I tried to add a custom feed by using the word "Bakersfield" and a few ZIPs, I got zero results. Terms like "San Francisco" will pull in some content, but it's clear Zite hasn't focused on geographically focused content. And that's OK. But at some point I think Zite nees that "local" flavor if it's going to differentiate itself in becoming a one-stop tablet news reader.

Big question, though, and the same one I have with Flipboard, Pulse and Flud: where's the revenue model? While these are really slick and sticky products, they're free and devoid of advertising.

As a user, I love Zite, Flipboard and Pulse, but as a businessman, each of these apps look like products aching for a sugar daddy like Google or Facebook. At some point, the servers can't pay for themselves.

Five days of The Daily

If you're in the news business, the big industry buzz of the past week was the launch of The Daily, Rupert Murdoch's new iPad-only news app. Even those who don't have iPads were chiming in on The Daily, good or bad. I can't recall this kind of interest in a news product in a long time.

If you're a regular reader of this site, you know I posted back in November that I was tired of pre-launch hate for The Daily, which only picked up steam with Wednesday's launch. I thought some of that post-launch criticism was justified (particularly with technical issues and thin hard-news report) while much was blind hate toward Murdoch and something different. After Day 1, I shared a quick update to that November post and said I'd follow-up after a few days of thorough review.

An iTunes-style story carousel is a great way to scan storiesAnd?

I feel like a piece of swaying seaweed writing this but I after 5 days of reading, I have a love-hate relationship with The Daily. One minute I'm thrilled, the next I'm shaking my head in disgust.
An iTunes-style story carousel makes it easy to skim topics.

I understand The Daily is not supposed to be The New York Times or even Huffington Post -- it's a tabloid for tablets. "The Daily" is not a publication of record. It skims the news and makes no bones about ignoring important news that for whatever reason doesn't make the cut.

Presentation is frequently striking, which is magnified on a high-resolution platform like the iPad.But too often The Daily seems thrown together, with digital tricks often inserted at the expense of relevant information.

I think The Daily is a product with tons of promise that surprises me enough each day to keep me coming back. But there are some flaws that I consider serious in light of The Daily's $25 million pre-launch costs and $500,000 per week operating costs moving forward.

So, follow me as I run through some highlights and lowlights, as well as a few suggestions:

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