08/04/2011 Decline, plateau, decline: New data on …

Decline, plateau, decline: New data on The Daily suggests a social

media decline and a tough road ahead
By Joshua Benton Curtir 56

While the news industry looks at smartphone and tablet apps as a chance to build more engaged readers — and
maybe even get people to pay! — for those of us who watch the business, apps are frustratingly opaque.

With sites on the open web, there are any number of ways for outsiders to estimate the size of audience a news
outlet is reaching. They’re imperfect, but they’re out there. But for, say, apps sold in Apple’s App Store, the only
data available is pretty poor. For top sellers, you can see where they rank among other free or paid apps, but
those numbers flit around from day to day. The number of ratings or reviews tell you something, but not a lot.

And some of the most interesting work in the future of news is happening in these apps — for instance, in The
Daily, which is trying to both create an iPad-native experience and get people to pay 99 cents a week for it.
Information about The Daily’s success (or lack thereof) has been hard to come by; external guesstimates have
gotten “no comments,” and the closest thing to a hard number to come out of The Daily so far is its publisher’s
statement that the app has been downloaded “hundreds of thousands” of times.

So I set out to see if there was some way to use publicly available data to try to understand at The Daily’s
readership. If I can’t know how many readers it has, perhaps I could find something that at least showed the
broader trend line.

That’s how, with major help from the social media firm PostRank, I came up with the chart above, which suggests
— at least when viewed through the lens of Twitter sharing — The Daily is losing audience over time rather
than gaining it.

Watching sharing activity through Twitter

No one outside News Corp. and Apple has a reliable way of knowing how often people
read The Daily. But there is one way in which The Daily’s app interacts with the public
web — through Twitter sharing. On nearly every page in the app, there’s a sharing button
in the top right that allows the reader to share a link to the story on Twitter or other
social networks. (A few pages, like the table of contents and user-customized pages,
aren’t sharable.)

The Daily does this by posting on the open web an image of what its stories look like
inside the app. (Since Andy Baio stopped indexing each day’s issue, there hasn’t been an easy way to find out
about most Daily stories unless someone first shares it from within the app.)

It’s easy to think of a tweet as just 140 characters, but there’s a lot of metadata around that little snippet of
text: when it was tweeted, who tweeted it, how many followers she has, what date she joined Twitter, and more.
Amidst all that data is information about where each tweet was generated. Did it come from Twitter’s web
interface, or from the official Twitter BlackBerry app, or a third-party app like Echofon or TweetDeck? That’s in
there.
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And thanks to Twitter’s requirement that app developers register with its API to allow in-app tweeting, that
means you can track every time someone tweets from within The Daily.

To get at that data, you need to have access to the full, massive Twitter stream — or
know someone who does. In my case, I reached out to PostRank, a Canadian social
media firm that does interesting work analyzing how individual webpages get shared
in social media. (We’re a customer of theirs — 15 bucks a month.) They were willing to
help, for which I’m very grateful. PostRank provided me with a database of every tweet generated by The Daily’s
iPad app from launch day (February 2) to March 31.

Caveat tweetor
Before I get into the findings, a caveat. We’re measuring the number of tweets generated from within The Daily.
We’re not directly measuring the number of readers of The Daily. Only a small fraction of readers are going to
choose to tweet something they see in the app. The idea here is that that the number of tweets should generally
go up when the number of readers go up — and vice versa.

It’s possible that there might be some reason why those would diverge. Social media and Twitter are getting more
popular all the time, so it might be that tweets could increase even if usage remains steady. Or the app could
make its sharing button less prominent and lead to fewer tweets (although in reality the layout remains the same
since launch). It’s not a perfect match — just evidence of a general direction. Got it?

Decline, plateau, decline

The data doesn’t look good for The Daily. Its activity on Twitter seems to match my own perceptions of how
they’re doing — an early rush of excitement; a decline as people lost interest and the app struggled with
technical problems; a plateau once the tech got sorted out; and then another decline once the app started
charging users.

In the nearly two months we’re looking at, only 6,026 tweets were generated within The Daily app. But much
more discouraging is the trend. Here’s the raw data:

You can already see the broad decline. On its first full day of release, Feb. 3, The Daily generated 387 tweets. A
week later, the number was 209; a week after that, 104.

The trend is clearer if you look at a 10-day moving average — that is, each point on this chart is the average of
the previous 10 days. (For that reason, the first point is marked Feb. 11 and covers Feb. 2-11.) A moving average
smoothes out the noise.

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There’s a steady decline from the early peak until around Feb. 25. On Feb. 26, The Daily released version 1.0.3 of
the app, which fixed some of the crashing and slowness problems that it had suffered from since launch.

From that point on, tweets from the app stayed fairly steady for almost a month. But you can see another
inflection downward starting around March 21. That’s the day The Daily stopped being free and started charging
99 cents a week. (I’m actually a little surprised that that decline isn’t steeper. That’s a good sign — that the
readers most likely to share their stories are paying up.)

While a certain amount of decline would be expected after the initial rush of attention, the fact that there’s never
been an appreciable, sustained uptick in sharing isn’t cause for optimism. (Also remember that, in the middle of
this stretch, Apple released the iPad 2 — literally millions of new iPads have been purchased in this narrow
window, creating millions of new potential Daily customers who might want to download one of the platform’s
most promoted apps.)

All in all, this doesn’t tell us how many people are reading The Daily — but it’s pretty good evidence the number
has shrunk rather than grown.

But there’s more interesting info in this data set than the general trend line. Tomorrow, in part 2, I’ll look further
into who’s sharing The Daily stories on Twitter, when they’re doing it, how in-app sharers differ from out-of-app
sharers, and much more.

Post ed April 5, 10 a.m. | Tags: Andy Baio, char ging, data, iPad apps, new s apps, News Cor p., paid content, PostRank, sharing, social m edia, The Daily ,
Twitter

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j onatha nme nd ez 2 days ago

Most people I know do not enjoy the experience of reading on an iPad. The iPad will be a lot of things and many of those things will actually be taking time
away from reading news - not adding to it.

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2 people liked this.

d mccall 2 days ago

Wow! I'm as anti-Apple as anyone and absolutely love reading on the iPad. I've rarely gotten my laptop out at home in the 4wks I've had the iPad.

2 people liked this.

G r oovyma rlin 2 days ago

I agree with you and I think that first comment sounds crrrrazy! I love reading on my iPad - everything from news apps (like Pulse) to Google Reader
to Instapaper to the Kindle app...I've been reading a ton since I got mine. I haven't used my laptop at all since it came.

2 people liked this.

za to 2 days ago

The anti-Apple propagandists are always right on top of every opportunity to kill Apple sales.

De r p 1 day ago

Yes. That is it. We are all "anti-Apple propagandists". Not at all like people with differing opinions. Never that.

Ma tt 2 days ago

Joshua- Couldn't this downward trend just as easily be explained by the learning curve of Daily Users, who began realizing that when they tweet a story, it
doesn't actually make the story accessible to twitter followers? (It provides an image, but not the text, and not a very sharable piece of content).

And I wonder whether its fair to judge the Daily based on the social-ness of its content, when the whole experiment of the Daily is to create a walled off news
experience that doesn't traffic in links inward or outward?

4 people liked this.

J oshua Benton 2 days ago

Hi Matt: To be clear, I'm not judging The Daily based on its social-ness. If The Daily didn't have any social element at all, that'd be a defensible choice on
their part; I'm not religious about it one way or the other. I'm just using it to try to approximate usage.

As I said in the piece, it's not perfect — but the trend lines are really quite clear over time. We'll have more data tomorrow that shows that tweets
generated outside The Daily app have followed a similar trend (though with a bigger total decline). And the sharing behavior you describe hasn't changed
since launch, so I'd be surprised if a learning curve was behind it.

I think it's more reasonable, though, that in the very first day or two post-launch, that people would have been interested in trying out the sharing tools
and tweeted more than they otherwise would. But I'd wager that would be a phenomenon of just the first day or two, not any later, if it happened.

2 people liked this.

P . Dougla s 1 day ago

I think a 25% conversion rate from free, to paying, is excellent.

2 people liked this.

MN j ourna list 2 days ago

Is this really surprising? You try the free trial out whether you plan on subscribing or not, just to see what everyone is talking about. Once your trial is up then
only the true supporters are left.

I'm a journalist and believe that you must pay for quality journalism. I support The Daily, but an iPad app doesn't solve the larger problems journalism is
facing.

J oshua Benton 2 days ago

That's right, and as I noted, the fact that there hasn't been a bigger drop in the numbers post-3/21 is encouraging. Frankly, I would have expected a
bigger decline. But the decline starts well before the free trial expired.

Chuck Ne lson 2 days ago

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I wonder if the early decline has anything to do with the originally announced two-week free window. I didn't the window had been extended until
about the time it closed and wasn't ready to get a subscription right away.

J a ker s 2 days ago

It would have been more interesting if you had also looked at the numbers of a more established news site during the same time.

1 person liked this.

J oshua Benton 2 days ago

More to come on that exact point soon.

Also, The Daily is a little bit unique in that it lives entirely within an app. Similar data from, say, The Guardian's iPhone app would be interesting, but the
iPhone app is still a tiny percentage of the total consumption and revenue of The Guardian in total.

Chris Ab ra ha m 2 days ago

In my opinion, the walls need to be broken down as much as possible. As many articles as can be shared should be shared.

Chris Ab ra ha m 2 days ago

Also, social media should be used to constantly remind people who are on @Daily that they can share. They do a great job of it in-app, but Facebook and
Twitter are a perfect place to constantly engage, educate, and convert -- not just a tool for sharing news and headlines, which is also essential.

d mcca ll 2 days ago

I like Twitter fine, but rarely check on referenced stories there. My real life friends are on Facebook. I think that The Daily ought to enable sharing to Facebook
where my friends can click and read the story I'm referencing. Perhaps only allow access to the first X number of friends who click on the link. Then it builds
value among my friends. Daily could offer a free week here and there to give incentives for good behavior sharing.

J oshua Benton 2 days ago

The Daily does allow sharing to Facebook, along with email sharing. No click limits.

d mccall 2 days ago

Hmmm... I'll have to try again. Like Chris Abraham stated, I really thought only fellow subscribers could read the links I shared, so there was no
point in sharing since none of my friends subscribe.

I do have to say that I rarely link-share on normal web stuff, though. Thanks, Josh.

Chris Lockha r t 2 days ago

Of course, this is one data point (one paper on one device). I'd be interested to see trends among various sites and via various means of consumption. Is it the
content or the device? Or both?

BK Wrtr 2 days ago

Also, not all The Daily's articles are sharable, which further complicates the ability to accurately measure usage.

Chris 2 days ago

The Daily needs to build their readership as they mature. The trial period is too short and the content not worth paying for yet. They should have let the first
100,000 on for free and build readership and word of mouth. THEN start charging. They goofed.

1 person liked this.

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Cha nd e rs 2 days ago

Of course, The Daily could avoid all this Talmudic parsing by releasing actual metrics on their audience, but hey. They'd rather we guess. You have to love our
new age of media transparency.

David Gerard and 1 more liked this

E nd otox 2 days ago

I was just at a talk at NYU with the founder of Craig's list...He complained about the same thing :)

Soon though Social Media will enhance fact-checking by involving citizens and increase the transparency requirements for professionals. Give it 10-15
years.

J o We d e nigg 2 days ago

Isn't it a little bit short sighted to proclaim a social media decline based on in-app sharing data from one single app?

shockme 2 days ago

I never tweet anything from the Daily but I read it everyday. You should be aware that it has an internal comment function that allows users to log in and post
comments about every story and has now begun creating a single page the primary function of which is to allow readers to sound off about a particular issue
of the day.

David G e ra rd 2 days ago

The only, the only actual business model there is for publishers on the iPad is: "Steve gets all the money." Even Rupert Murdoch can't beat that one.

The reason publishers do iPad apps is so that those in the executive suite can get a company iPad.

Scooterch and 1 more liked this

T om Car mony 1 day ago

There's a lot about The Daily's potential failure that's difficult to parse out. To what degree is lack of reader interest due to pricing? I'd hope that's not the only
barrier, and Murdoch and Co. should be lauded for taking a realistic view of value/pricing for the app (at 99 cents per week) - I'm looking at you, NY Times.

You've also got a couple of additional confounding variables that, for me personally are much bigger than price. One being the tone/political slant of the
writing; I'm not saying that's been a particular problem with The Daily, but for many potential readers that perception might be an issue (due to it being
Murdoch's baby).

Something else that I think could be an even bigger factor is the early instability of the app (I gave up on it after a couple of days of near-constant crashing)
and the wait/download time. The insistence of many of these print-to-app transitions of exporting content as graphic files (JPG or PNG) rather than HTML/CSS
has been the biggest frustration for me, personally. No ability to select/copy snippets of text, loooonnnnggg load times as new issues are downloaded, and
difficulty resizing text to easier reading are all big hassles. And these aren't problems exclusive to The Daily; the same constraints can be said for many of the
magazine apps as well.

P . Dougla s 1 day ago

There is nothing wrong with The Daily's tweet performance. It is normal to lose most of your customers as you move over from a free to a paid subscription
business model. It is called conversion. You also see this in trial apps, where only a fraction of users who used an app for free, decide to pay to keep on using
the app.

E r ik 1 day ago

Hello, for me these conclusions are too quick and too early. The penetration of iPad does not allow to conclude these already now. And i can easily show
statistics that prove the contrary. There is still a work to be done, and there are also other apss that do the sharing. I would like more a general view.

DailyComme nt 23 hours ago

Since the Daily was free for the first two weeks, the drop off in tweets is mostly related to people who had it for free who decided not convert to a
subscription. Taking this into account, I'm not sure this data tells me anything that is useful.

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J oshua Benton 20 hours ago

Actually, it was free until March 21.

Reactions
Ste ve wa l6 3 7 hours ago

RT @SangeetaHaindl: Decline, plateau, decline: New data on The Daily suggests a social media decline and a tough road ahead http://t.co/idtZU5L

Sa nge e ta Ha ind l 8 hours ago

Decline, plateau, decline: New data on The Daily suggests a social media decline and a tough road ahead http://t.co/idtZU5L

insid er stor y 9 hours ago

Heads up: New data on The Daily suggests a #socialmedia decline and a tough road ahead http://ow.ly/4vMda

vince nte 11 hours ago

RT @remcobron: @loekessers @woenz @vincente Speak of the devil; cijfers over het non-succes van The Daily http://ow.ly/4vBek via @hmblank

r e mcob ron 19 hours ago

@loekessers @woenz @vincente Speak of the devil; cijfers over het non-succes van The Daily http://ow.ly/4vBek via @hmblank

ma rkze ma n 20 hours ago

RT @mikeindustries: It appears usage of Rupert Murdoch's "The Daily" is moving from tepid to chilly: http://bit.ly/etyt9P

mura tk3 n 21 hours ago

That Murdock thing, The Daily is not doing well. RT @bradfordcross Decline, plateau, decline http://bit.ly/gZ4hXy

va fonsotfe 1 day ago

RT @ricardqs: RT @saladeprensa El Daily de Murdoch pierde audiencia, en lugar de ganarla http://bit.ly/fvfmMz #periodismo #redessociales #pduoc

b loginNYC 1 day ago

Nieman Uses Twitter to Track The Daily’s Audience http://bit.ly/gaggPI

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard

1 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-2237, fax: 617-495-8976

Copyright and licensing information / Some rights reserved

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