• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, October 26, 2010

News Corp. is said to be working on the first national, all-digital American tabloid targeting the growing market of tablet computers, especially Apple's new iPad, according to Forbes, which cited sources familiar with the project. The multinational media publisher is hoping to introduce the as-yet-unnamed digital tabloid, tentatively titled "The Daily," as early as December.

All told, the new publication will employ about 150 people, including editorial, business and technical responsibilities, with a first-year budget of $30 million. Jesse Angelo, the former executive editor of the New York Post, will lead the team, wilth Greg Clayman, who formerly served as head of digital distribution for Viacom, in charge of business operations.

News Corp. may be the first company with plans to launch a major digital-only newspaper for tablet computers. But plenty of print publishers are hoping to take advantage of the iPad's huge popularity.

This summer, The New York Times unveiled plans for a new digital publishing platform, Press Engine, which is scheduled to debut in the fourth quarter. Drawing on the NYT's experience creating its own apps for the iPhone and iPad, it is available to other newspaper publishers for a fee. The new service will provide app templates that save articles, share content, have photo galleries, audio and video features, horizontal and vertical reading, simple search, and device-standard advertising units. It also allows for partial offline reading.

Currently, Gartner is forecasting global tablet computer sales of 19.4 million units by the end of 2010 -- due largely to brisk sales of the iPad, climbing to 55 million in 2011. As of late October, Apple has currently sold about 4.2 million iPads in the U.S.