The New York Times vs. Pulse

By  |  Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 12:04 pm

At yesterday’s Apple WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs listed the cool Pulse newsreader first among the iPad apps he praised. I like it too.  But All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher is reporting that the New York Times (which recently published an upbeat story about Pulse) successfully lobbied Apple to yank Pulse from the App Store shortly after its keynote kudos. The Times contends that Pulse’s use of Times newsfeeds and framed NYTimes.com content violates their terms of service.

It’s unclear what damage is being done to the Times: Its RSS feeds provide summaries only, so you use Pulse to read the newspaper’s stories without visiting the Times site and being exposed to the advertising it carries. You gotta think that it’s Times lawyers, not Times journalists, who think that Pulse is a problem rather than a source of new readers.

Here’s hoping that the kerfuffle doesn’t keep Pulse out of the App Store for long. Yanking the Times from the default feeds would be one solution. The Times reconsidering its complaint would be a better one.

[UPDATE: It’s back!]

[UPDATE: The Times is unhappy that it’s back!]

 
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4 Comments For This Post

  1. Sean Gallagher Says:
    June 8th, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    Does Pulse strip out the RSS advertisements? The Times is embedding ads in its RSS feeds, so maybe it’s an issue of loss of ad revenue.

  2. Paul Judd Says:
    June 8th, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    I just checked and it is still showing up for me in the US store.

  3. Hamranhansenhansen Says:
    June 8th, 2010 at 5:47 pm

    I think the NY Times lawyers looked at Pulse as a $4 online magazine, and they decided that it makes “commercial use” of their RSS feeds, which the feeds are not licensed for. There is an interesting border there.

  4. Matt H Says:
    June 9th, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    It’s not that THAT cool of an app, I was excited about RSS too when I was 23, 7 years ago! I don’t get all the hype about “apps” lately, they’ve been around for awhile they’re called websites! I understand the need for widget based apps or games, but c’mon do we really need text based apps that can be created the old way, on the web. Besides the web is not only viewable from an iPad but any device!! Please see my prototype as I began working today only to prove to myself that I still have it. I saw all this hype around this new app but don’t see what the big deal is. The design is cool, but the technology is nothing new…

    My “APP” -> http://www.dailyrss.com/ipad

3 Trackbacks For This Post

  1. The New York Times vs. Pulse | New York Blogs Says:
    June 8th, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    […] http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=new+york&ie=utf-8&num=10&outpu… […]

  2. AT&T answers questions about iPhone – CNN | Apple Product Tips And App News Says:
    June 9th, 2010 at 12:48 am

    […] The New York Times vs. Pulse […]

  3. Ted Paulson » As Curators Proliferate, Media Brands Face Loyalty Crisis Says:
    May 5th, 2011 at 6:48 am

    […] and desist to one of these services, Zite, for going too far in how it presents content. The Times allegedly protested when Pulse first hit the scene last year, causing Apple to take down the app for further review. […]