Australian sells 8500 iPad apps first month

Interesting news tidbit: The Australian, the Aussie national paper owned by News Limited, part of the Rupert Murdoch news dynasty, launched its iPad app this week. And while the paper pales in circulation to the two metro papers of Sydney and Melbourne, with only 135,000 for its Monday-Friday edition and double that for Saturday, it sold 8,500 apps in its inaugural month.

According to Nick Leeder, deputy chief executive officer of The Australian, the app, which costs $3.99 a month, the number sold far exceeded expectations -- and has proven to a useful albeit "brutal" feedback tool. "The first thing they said was 'we want more content.' There are certain things The Australian stands for that we didn't have in the original app, more Opinion and Media," explained Leeder. Readers also said they wanted content and functionalities that would be found on an iPad app -- "and that's progressively being rolled out."

Not too shabby to have a focus group that pays you to participate. But if there is one thing we all should have learned by now is that audiences will give you some latitude at ramp-up -- but you have a very small window to give them what they want before they go ... er, walk-about.