At a TechCrunch disrupt panel on impact of tablet computers, Greg Clayman, publisher of News Corp’s iPad only paper, The Daily, tried to sound upbeat.
“We’ve been downloaded almost a million times,” said Clayman. “Which kind of puts us in the pantheon of large apps. We are consistently now in the top grossing apps.”
The competition is rough, Clayman admitted. “You sort of take a look at the top ten, we’re always there. Today we were number three. Tomorrow, somebody will spend a lot of money on Smurfs, you know, and will be number four.”
While it seemed strange to many pundits for News Corp. to launch a publication that seemed squarely targeted at the demographic of USA today on device that was owned principally by early adopters, Clayman says that isn’t the case anymore.
“I think, there was a perception, I certainly had it, that the iPad is this sort of early adopter medium, and it’s tech geeks, you know, it’s going to New York and San Francisco. And when you look at our subscribers and you map them out over the U.S., what we find is, hey’re everywhere. I mean as we have as many subscribers between Florida and Texas as we do in L.A..”
