News Corp. said today that has acquired Skiff, a platform designed by the Hearst Corp. to “deliver premium journalism to tablets, smartphones, e-readers and netbooks,” and also announced an investment in Journalism Online LLC, the venture working to unleash online revenue from newspapers, magazines and other online-only publishers of quality content.
Terms of the deal were not released.
I remember reading about Skiff around the time of CES. At the time, the device was showing off the platform and looked to be more like a Kindle rival. Since then, of course, the iPad has hit the scene and offered a whole new way of looking at (pun intended) traditional print media on an electronic device.
Also see: Image Gallery: Skiff Reader
It’s unclear what News Corp. will do with Skiff - either as a platform or device - but it’s clear that the media company’s interest these days is finding ways to monetize its news content. If not a competing device, I imagine that we’ll eventually see some sort of pay model for content that allows viewing on other devices - maybe a subscription app or something along those lines.
Just because the Skiff was on display at CES doesn’t mean it will end up competing with other readers on display in retail stores any time soon.
