The great new hope of Lord Rothermere for the digital future that is the Mail+ venture is making half its staff redundant this week. Redundancy notices have gone out, though not for his son, 26 year-old Vere Rothermere, who is finding his way in the family business at Mail+.

Readers and media commentators might be a little confused by the fierce competition between the Daily Mail’s editor Geordie Grieg, Mail Online edited by Martin Clark and Mail+, which was managed by Tristan Davies until he too got the boot a few weeks ago. They all jealously compete against each other for resources and star hacks’ time. The Mail on Sunday less so, although it too has to resentfully cough up content to to Mail Online. It was noticeable that in his prematurely boastful interview in GQ, Geordie Grieg overlooked mentioning Mail+ for some reason..

Mail+, unlike Mail Online, charged for content which was a bit more upmarket than updates about Kim Kardashian’s bottom. It doesn’t appear that people are willing to pay for it though. Sadly this means they are cutting back half their staff. Guido thought something was up when he noticed that many of their podcasts – which they gave away free – were not being updated. The politics podcast was last updated in July. Just as well nothing has happened in politics…

For a new media venture it appears to be getting little traction, despite big name stars like Andrew Pierce tweeting out daily made-for-social videos, interviews with and stories about the royals, reports from Michael Crick and content from star columnists, Mail+ has a mere 3,535 followers on Twitter. The approach isn’t working…

N.B. If you have top-notch digital audio/video production skills and are looking for work – do get in touch team@order-order.com.