News Corp Buys Skiff eReader Platform

You might recognize the News Corporation name as the publishing empire that spans some of the largest publications in print. One of the key publications in the News Corp empire is The Wall Street Journal along with lots of other publications.

Rupert Murdoch is the man behind the publishing empire and he has made no bones about believing that readers online should be paying to read the stories published there. To this end, News Corp has announced today that it has purchased the Skiff LLC eReader platform from Hearst Corporation, the terms of the deal are undisclosed.

The platform is designed to deliver premium journalism to digital devices like tablets, smartphones, eReaders, and netbooks. At the same time, News Corp is also investing in Journalism Online LLC dedicated to helping newspapers, magazines, and online-only publishers collect revenue from their readers. Journalism Online's Press+TM e-commerce platform lets the publisher set their own pricing and payment model for their content including a metered model where a certain amount of content is free before going to a paid model.