Mediagazer: HarperStudio RIP — Scribd have posted an internal letter … (Martyn Daniels/Brave New World)

10:30 PM ET, April 4, 2010

Top News:

iPad app pricing: A last act of insanity by delusional content companies — Looking at the iPad app rollout, you can easily separate the digital wheat from the chaff in the content industries, and you can see those who are developing digital businesses and those who are trying to protect print margins …

Discussion: broadstuff

Rafat Ali / paidContent:

iPad Day One: Charts Show Big Media Mostly Playing In Free Apps, Not Paid — So day one of iPad launch almost over—though West Coast's still in full swing—no estimates on how many iPads have sold, but it is instructive to see how the charts for iPad apps are doing.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider, TUAW and Gizmodo

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

Apple's iPad makes covers of Time, Newsweek — When was the last time that Time and Newsweek went with the same cover subject whose name wasn't Obama? — Clearly, such treatment would be reserved for a development so indisputably vital that it would change civilization as we know it.

Discussion: Online, Bits, Recovering Journalist, New York Post, MinOnline, MarketWatch, The Next Web and Gawker

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

The Fool's Gold At The End Of The iPad Rainbow — The media has been making a huge deal about how the iPad is supposed to “save the business,” because suddenly everything will return to apps, and people pay for apps, and toss in a big dose of “Steve Jobs!” and there's some sort of magic formula …

Discussion: BuzzMachine, ScribeMedia.org, Danny O'Brien's Oblomovka, Financial Times, Kindle Review and TeleRead

Damon Kiesow / Mobile Media:
Early iPad app downloads dominated by media offerings

Discussion: Gawker and GigaOM

Om Malik / GigaOM: Why the iPad Will Change Blogging for Me

Eric Pfanner / New York Times:

In Britain, a Laboratory for Newsprint's Future — PARIS — Only days after News Corp. announced plans to start charging online readers of The Times of London and its Sunday sibling, a so-called pay wall came down last week at The Southern Reporter in Selkirk, Scotland.

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Apple tried to prevent hiring of tech writer by Newsweek — Newsweek tech writer Dan Lyons was on “Reliable Sources” on Sunday morning talking about the coverage of Apple's new iPad and revealed that the company has not been happy with him for quite some time. — Here is an excerpt from the transcript:

Discussion: CNN

Andrew Alexander / Washington Post:

Online readers need a chance to comment, but not to abuse — Anonymous online commenting has always been rowdy and raucous, especially when public figures are the targets. — “Excellent!” exulted a Post commenter when conservative columnist Robert Novak died in August. “Hope he suffered.”

MediaShift:

Magazines Require Innovation, Experiments in Digital and Print — Some magazine fans may feel like their favorite publications are dissolving into fragments of their former selves: fractured content distributed throughout the web, social media, digital editions and the surviving print versions.

Discussion: Tuned In, Mashable!, Newspay, WHAT'S NEXT and SivekMedia.com

Clark Hoyt / New York Times:

Censored in Singapore — LAST month, on the same day The New York Times praised Google for standing up to censorship in China, a sister newspaper, The International Herald Tribune, apologized to Singapore's rulers and agreed to pay damages because it broke a 1994 legal agreement and referred to them in a way they did not like.

Martyn Daniels / Brave New World:

HarperStudio RIP — Scribd have posted an internal letter to all staff of their innovative HarperStudio stating its closure. — Harper Studio's mantra was that it was 'committed to partnering with authors to publish books in a way that is effective, creative, and sustainable.

Jason Boog / GalleyCat:

Amazon Includes Disclaimer on eBooks Priced by Agency Model — As the agency model takes effect today on many eBooks, Amazon has begun labeling eBooks priced by publishers with a new disclaimer—disavowing their role in pricing and sending a clear message to customers.

Michael Hirschorn / New York Magazine:

Don't Cry for CNN — Thirty years ago, CNN, now in decline, was as revolutionary as Google. It had a pretty good run. — In the end, it's usually our principles that betray us. Former CNN chief Rick Kaplan told Ken Auletta in his 2004 biography of founder Ted Turner, “Basically, the Fox prime-time schedule is just talk radio.