The first great iPad newspaper experiment is over. News Corp. has announced that it is shutting down The Daily on December 15, and that some staffers will head to The New York Post. Here is a statement about the end of The Daily, from Rupert Murdoch:

From its launch, The Daily was a bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation. Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term. Therefore we will take the very best of what we have learned at The Daily and apply it to all our properties. Under the editorial leadership of Editor-in-Chief Col Allan and the business and digital leadership of Jesse, I know The New York Post will continue to grow and become stronger on the web, on mobile, and not least, the paper itself. I want to thank all of the journalists, digital and business professionals for the hard work they put into The Daily.

From day one, The Daily had its critics and flaws. People said the content was subpar, readers complained about the functionality and yes, there was that infamous search for the oldest dog in America.

We always held out hope that The Daily would make it, but in the end, it just couldn’t keep publishing. Still, we applaud News Corp. and the Daily’s staffers for trying something completely new. It was definitely fun and interesting while it lasted.

“Technology is easy. Journalism is hard,” says the Wall Street Journal‘s mobile and tablets editor David Ho. The Journal was one of the first major newspapers to develop an iPad app, the process of which was the toughest professional challenge Ho has undertaken. “It was more than a news-journalism-tech challenge. It felt like some crazy endurance race,” he said.

And, having gone through that process of creating a news app from scratch, Ho said he empathizes with the pressure his peers at News Corp.’s The Daily likely face.

“I think everyone involved in tablet and mobile news watches The Daily. It’s this bold experiment: a brand new news organization created from scratch. How often do you see that these days? The Daily pioneered a lot of ways to deliver news on tablets,” Ho said in Mediabistro’s latest So What Do You Do? interview.

“It does look like The Daily is trying to make their production process easier,” he continued. “They dropped their landscape view not long ago. That I get. Supporting two tablet rotations all the time is a lot of work. It’s tough to put out a tablet issue every day.”

Read more in So What Do You Do, David Ho, Mobile and Tablets Editor at The Wall Street Journal?

Here’s a look at what FishbowlNY stories made the most buzz this week.

1. Viacom Takes Pro Gay Marriage Stance, July 27
2. Jonah Lehrer (left) Resigns From The New Yorker, July 30
3. The Daily Drops a Third of its Staff, July 31
4. Jonah Lehrer Might Have Been Addicted to Lying, July 31
5. WPIX Anchor Kaity Tong Takes Stand in Former Boss’ Age Discrimination Suit, July 26
6. WPIX Catches WNYW in Morning Race, July 27
7. WNYW Keeps Distance at 10 P.M., as Greg Kelly Marks One-Month, August 2

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Photo credit: salon.com

The bad news for The Daily continues. According to All Things D, the digital newspaper is cutting 50 of its 170 employees, nearly a third of its staff. Apparently the hardest hit will be the the editorial and sports pages, which will still carry on after the lay offs, but with minimal content.

The cutbacks come on the heels of News Corp. announcing that it was putting The Daily on probation, so this probably isn’t a good sign for its future.

As for Jesse Angelo‘s comments that anyone saying The Daily is doomed is a “hater?” Well, we can only imagine what he’s going to say now.

UPDATE:
Check after the jump for a release about the cuts from The Daily.

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Jesse Angelo, The Daily’s editor-in-chief, has heard all the chatter about his publication being put on probation for losing too much money. In a memo to staffers, Angelo says that everything is fine and anyone saying otherwise should be ignored:

Since before we launched, our dear friends at competing media outlets have done their best to wish us ill and gleefully ‘report’ on what they think is going on here. The truth is we have over 100,000 paying subs who are renewing their subscriptions at a 98% rate and fantastic advertisers who love our brand and keep coming back for more because they get results. Pay attention to them, not the haters.

Hopefully Angelo likes this “report” better than our previous “report,” but even if he doesn’t, we’re happy to see that he uses such hip words as “haters.” Even if it’s not 1998 anymore.

The Daily is in trouble. The New York Times reports that News Corp. is currently trying to figure out just what to do with the digital newspaper because it is losing way too much money. Sources also told the Times that other smaller ventures like The Daily are being watched/about to be given the old heave-ho.

It was only in January of last year that The Daily’s publisher, Greg Clayman, was telling everyone who would listen just how great the publication was doing. Things do change quickly, don’t they?

The Daily, introduced in early 2011, is estimated to lose about $30 million a year. That will probably make the decision a little easier.

It has been a little over a year since The Daily launched, and today it has grown a bit more: The digital newspaper finally has an iPhone app. Non-subscribers can view a few articles each day for free, subscribers (The Daily is $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year) can obviously view it all.

“With The Daily now available on iPhones, readers will have immediate access to original editorial and news content, right in their pockets,” said Jesse Angelo, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily. Greg Clayman, its Publisher, added, ”Being accessible to readers across all platforms has always been a top priority, and we’re looking forward to broadening our presence in the mobile space.”

The app itself isn’t that intriguing, but it does make sense for The Daily to offer this convenience to its subscribers.

File this under “Reading Can Be Helpful.” According to Jim Romenesko, Luke Kummer, a reporter for The Daily, resigned after seeing that one of his stories was edited in a way he didn’t appreciate. Kummer submitted his resignation, and then tweeted to The Daily’s account that the new story, “has nothing to do with my reporting. I object to it in every way. I wrote straight w/o absurd sensationalism.”

Unfortunately for Kummer, the tweet was a breach of contract according to a letter he received from The Daily:

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Few things have been as harshly scrutinized in the last year as The Daily. Sure, “Scream 4″ was attacked for not taking advantage of the superior talents of David Arquette, and more recently Lana Del Rey has been critiqued about 4,347 times too many, but The Daily seemed to get blasted more than anything. So how is The Little Tablet Paper That Could doing now? Its Publisher, Greg Clayman, says “just fine, thank you.”

Digiday reports that The Daily has the same reach as The Detroit Free Press or The Seattle Times, with about 250,000 monthly readers and 100,000 paid subscribers. It also continues to have the support of big-time advertisers, such as IBM and BMW and has finally worked out all of its technical issues. This, according to Clayman, is all part of the plan.

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Big news for Android users.

After publishing exclusively on the iPad since its February 2011 launch, The Daily is now coming to an Android near you.

This month, select Verizon Wireless Android devices will come preloaded with the tablet newspaper, which ranked as the third top grossing iPad app in 2011.

The first lucky device? The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Existing users will get the app through a software update and new customers will see the app on home screens of the tablet.  The recently announced Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 will also offer The Daily at a later date.

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