Wired Releases A Story Early To Apple News Users; Wired Readers Not Happy

from the fragmenting-the-internet dept

As you may know, Apple last week released its new Apple News newsreader product. I don’t have an iOS device, so I haven’t checked it out, but the reviews I’ve heard have been fairly underwhelmed by the experience. Either way, Wired apparently decided (or did some sort of deal with Apple) to release a particular story as an “exclusive” on Apple News. The story was released last week, but you can only see it on Apple News. If you go to this URL on Wired before the story officially shows up on the web tonight, you get a blurb saying that it’s only available on Apple news for now.

This story is being previewed exclusively on Apple News until Tuesday, September 22nd. Please check this page again at that time.

Perhaps not that surprisingly, a lot of people are unhappy about this. Wired posted this to its Facebook feed and the comments are almost entirely negative.




Whaddya know? Turns out that creating arbitrary exclusives based on what platform people use (and, likely, which company paid you to keep your content exclusive to their platform) serves mainly to piss people off. People don’t want a fragmented/fractured content experience. They don’t want to be told that they can’t read a story just because they don’t have the “right” kind of phone. That’s not the kind of internet the public wants, and it’s a bit unfortunate that it’s one that Wired has apparently decided to support.

Filed Under: , , , , ,
Companies: apple, conde nast, wired

Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “Wired Releases A Story Early To Apple News Users; Wired Readers Not Happy”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
52 Comments
nasch (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

So exclusive to a platform = bad, but exclusive within a platform = good?

I don’t think it’s a matter of “bad” and “good” but a question of how people react. Mike isn’t saying this is immoral, he’s saying it might not be a good business decision because it pisses people off. If there had been an uproar in the Techdirt community about the crystal ball/insider feature, I’m sure he would have reconsidered it, but we seem to have accepted it just fine.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Release Partner

If you go to apples news page:

http://www.apple.com/news/

You’ll see wired displayed on 8 out of 11 idevices. I don’t think wired is suffering from this deal. Maybe Mike’s just upset because it wasn’t offered to him. I’m pretty sure he would’ve taken the deal if it was offered.

The rest of the world hasn’t got news yet, so everyone who updated their phone has landed on that page trying to find out why they don’t have news on their phone. If I didn’t know who wired was, I do now.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re:

There’s just a bit of a difference between treating two groups differently based upon what device they’re using to access your site, and giving those that are willing to throw money at you some minor perks in thanks for doing so.

Unless you’re arguing that paying customers/visitors/viewers should be treated the same as non-paying customers/visitors/viewers, which pretty thoroughly guts any real reason to pay for any service or site, then there’s nothing wrong with giving someone who’s willing to pay a reward for doing so.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Early for those who pay? It's an outrage! -- Sez the guy who let paying "Insiders" read and comment on THIS item first!

Early for those who pay? It’s an outrage! — Sez the guy who let paying “Insiders” read and comment on THIS item first!

Not about early to those who pay. About early to those who are on a specific platform. Reading comprehension troubles again?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Early for those who pay? It's an outrage! -- Sez the guy who let paying "Insiders" read and comment on THIS item first!

“Not about early to those who pay. About early to those who are on a specific platform.” …. meaning to pay to be on that platform. You better chase after the logic that is escaping you! hurry!!

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Early for those who pay? It's an outrage! -- Sez the guy who let paying "Insiders" read and comment on THIS item first!

If you want Techdirt a little early you can pay to be an insider, want wired a little early go buy an IOS device. Seems to me there is a difference in price, and commitment. One is an advantage to those who who want to give Techdirt some support, the other is a marketing gimmick for Apple.

jilocasin (profile) says:

It works so good for music and television right?

Requiring multiple apps, services, platforms works so well for other areas;

Music:

  • Spotify
  • Pandora
  • Tidal
  • Apple Music
  • etc.

TV:

  • Hulu
  • Netflix
  • AppleTV
  • Amazon Prime
  • HBO Go
  • etc.

So why would you want to settle for just plain old Wired (web edition) when you can have:

  • Wired Web edition
  • Wired Apple edition
  • Wired Android edition
  • Wired Tizen edition
  • Wired Windows Mobile edition
  • Wired Windows 10 edition
  • Wired XBox Live edition
  • Wired BlackBerry edition
  • Wired Roku edition
  • Wired Facebook edition
  • Wired Samsung edition
  • Wired Sony edition
  • Wired PlayStation Network edition
  • etc.

I mean it’s not like anyone can get their news somewhere else now can they? /s

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: It works so good for music and television right?

I’ve solved this problem by using torrents. One stop for music, video, books, magazines, etc. (But not movies. Oh, there ARE movies there, but almost without exception they suck, suck, suck, suck, and suck some more. Hollywood would have to pay me to sit through this crap.)

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Video Games

“Agnostic”

I do not think that word means what you think it means. “Platform agnostic” literally means that the video game programmers believed they could not know whether a platform existed. “Platform apathetic” (or “platform indifferent”) would mean that they knew a platform existed but that it did not matter which one.

Carpet says:

Home Depot

Home Depot pulled the same shit on me this weekend with a similar result. If you use Home Depot for installation you can have your carpet installed in 7 days or less. But if you dont have it installed by Home Depot your carpet will not be delivered for 2-3 weeks. I had the same response: “In that case, I dont need to buy carpet from you.”

tqk (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Well, I stopped reading wired a long time ago. Are people who still read it actually surprised by this?

Indeed. Wired’s been “tech marketing” press since day one. There should be no surprise here.

Besides, tech long ago split into “tech technical” and “tech fashionable/sexy”, with the latter invariably vanguarded with Apple and its iBaubles. The latter are not sophisticated tech, just fashionable, and since they started suing others for features emulating old style TVs (rounded corners), techs are embarassed to be anywhere near them. Of course Wired is going to kiss Tim Cook’s feet whenever given a chance. It’s where the money is for them.

Anonymous Coward says:

Don’t really care honestly. Gave up on Wired a long time ago. Never did own an overpriced Apple branded product so Apple isn’t in my list of must haves.

They can limit their readership all they want. But that has the price of less eyeballs.

Right now, neither of these are must have or must go to. With this move it went from neither to never.

Anonymous Coward says:

http://www.wired.com/2015/09/bjarke-ingels-2-world-trade-center-wtc/

Page Not Found
Whoops, that page is missing!
If you clicked a link that led you to this page, please let us know so we can fix our mistake as soon as possible.

Whoops, that page was archived!

https://web.archive.org/web/20150919095312/http://www.wired.com/2015/09/bjarke-ingels-2-world-trade-center-wtc/

Leave a Reply to nasch Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...