Article
iPad publishing: Why the real challenge is the competition for attention
There's optimism but a lack of confidence in the news industry when it comes to exploiting the iPad, as I wrote yesterday. Conde Nast is doing selectively ambitious projects, and a handful of titles are carefully pushing out sensitively planned apps - aware of the scrutiny of developing for this high-profile platform. (And yes, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and others, will have their day.)
Beyond the traditional media industry, there have been few innovative models for iPad news apps. Flipboard is the highest profile, making a magazine from your feeds. Likewise Pulse famously attracted the ire of the New York Times because of its use of feeds. And then there are the advanced reader tools like Instapaper and Interrupt!on and Reeder, all a new generation of RSS tools.
Matt Webb at design agency Berg was part of the team that worked on a brief from Bonnier, the Swedish media group, to explore reading experiences on touchscreen devices in late 2009. That was clearly quite prescient, because Berg then adapted that work - a publishing platform called Mag+, - for the iPad when it launched in April, subsequently building an iPad version of Popular Science.
There are now five titles on the Mag+ platform, all published every month through the App Store. With that perspective developing for the iPad and working with a traditional publisher, what's Webb's view on how to approach a publishing strategy for iPad?
"Here's how I'd frame the challenge," he said. "We're in an era where newspapers and magazines have dominated by distribution - that means getting in front of people at WHSmith's where they compete with other magazines and newspapers.
"Now they could be competing with five minutes of a delightful game, a blockbusting TV show, an expert in New York fashion on a custom blog or their own baby photos. That competition is actually between magazines and newspapers and a complex set of different feelings and experiences that are provoked in people.
"You don't win by using a different cover or a splashy headline, but what will win - and this is still an experience - but long-form journalism, really big pictures because they throw RGB and light out onto people's faces, and doing things with friends. Facebook represents the transformation of the web as we figure out what to do with all that. So what you end up with is a really nice period of experimentation."
Webb points out that this crisis in the dynamics of the publishing industry has happened to others, too. New tools bridge the space between individuals and big companies.
"There used to be a big gap between the music industry and bands in pubs, and between newspapers and fanzines. But the internet allows a new middle ground for people that are passionate and happen to be good... Economic production and distribution has changed. So it's not how we present the newspaper or magazine - it's other people doing something similar from home or as a small hobby, a distributed collection.
If those kind of 'attention economics' seem too much of a challenge - the outlook is ultimately positive. Newspapers ultimately resolved the challenge of blogging by incorporating blogs into their publications. The call now is for publishers to step up and properly explore the app as a publishing model, as well as what the demands of a tablet mean.
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User Comments
robinjewsbury
11 January 2011 4:34PM
The reason why apps have become so popular is the ease of distribution enabled by the Appstores. It makes the finding and downloading/caching of content easy and very effective. Caching is hugely important in this sometimes connected realworld particularly when people of reading large amounts of text - you don't want to get 1/2 way through an article when your train go into a tunnel. So in my real world caching, app, new user interfaces are important.
JohnPrince
11 January 2011 7:47PM
I know its only a 'Blog', and I know it sounds like 'harping on', but when will we see some improvement in this output?
'Conde Nast is doing selectively ambitious projects' - [Not English].
'..aware of the scrutiny of developing for this high-profile platform' - [Not English].
'. And then there are...' - [Sentence beginning with a preposition - well, sometimes accepted nowadays, but beginning with AND?].
'..has happened to others, too.' - [Clement would turn in his grave - Tautology].
' "There used to...' - [No sign of these Quotes closing].
'..ultimately positive. Newspapers ultimately..' - [OK, not in the same sentence, but this repetition is far to proximate].
'The call now is for publishers to step up and properly explore the app as a publishing model, as well as what the demands of a tablet mean.' - [Over to you on this one - I don't have time to go into it].
I know The Grauniad is well know for its 'spulling mastiks' and typos, but these fall far outside of those categories.
Superhoops1
11 January 2011 8:06PM
I know its only a 'Blog', and I know it sounds like 'harping on', but when will we see some improvement in this output?....
I know it's only an answer to a blog but it's it's, not its. Is that the sound of the glasshouse smashing?
12ptbylinetogohere
11 January 2011 8:57PM
@JohnPrince
"this repetition is far to proximate"? That's possibly a bad translation from the original Klingon.
Pot, Kettle. Get a grip, anal grammar geek.
JohnPrince
12 January 2011 10:20AM
@Superhoops1 - In this instance 'Its' is short for 'It is' and not the possessive
form when it would be 'It's'.
@12ptbylinetogohere - A definition from an 'English' Dictionary :
Proximate - "2. close; very near."
Is it anal or geeky to comment an the abuse of the language by a professional journalist who should know a lot better?
Seems the kettle might be clean, and the windows intact.
BTW - Neither of you has spotted my typo yet!
MagicGeoff
12 January 2011 10:43AM
JohnPrince, this isn't a job application form for sub-editor, you know...
MagicGeoff
12 January 2011 12:51PM
Anyway, interesting video; app looks rather nice.
If only I had an iPad!
SimpleScribe
13 January 2011 10:58AM
I've always been hugely impressed by Berg - both the concept vid for Mag+, and the version that was realised for Bonnier.
However, I don't think Matt Webb's necessarily right in saying publications are battling with games, photos, social networks and other push notifications, for readers attention. That's akin to saying the phone ringing directly competes with reading a newspaper or a print mag. You pause, attend to it and then return to your reading. Or ignore the interruption altogether.
In order for publishers, editors and journalists to get readers to do the latter (and/or the former), they have to be producing compelling content, and that's where I do agree with Webb.
This is where the crux of the matter is; in the content. Get it right, make it absorbing and 'unputdownable' and readers will wait to respond to a Facebook comment, check out a blog or embark upon an Angry Birds session.
Oh, and @JohnPrince
In this instance 'Its' is short for 'It is' and not the possessive form when it would be 'It's'.
Your understanding of the possessive form is incorrect here.
In this instance, 'It's' requires an apostrophe because it’s a contraction of 'It is'.
What’s more, your typo 'is well know' to those of us who can proof read.
Yours, a jobbing journalist.
Superhoops1
15 January 2011 12:57PM
@Superhoops1 - In this instance 'Its' is short for 'It is' and not the possessive form when it would be 'It's'.
Just wrong, as simplescribe pointed out, and your response above shows you've got no understanding of a possessive or a contraction.
Yours, a qualified sub
Briantist
11 January 2011 3:58PM
Basically, in the real world, no-one is going to pay for an "app" that simply caches web content and perhaps gives it a new user interface.
Some idiots will pay because they think the box the device comes in looks "coo", but in the long run tablets will act as cloud devices to web content, not high-cost caches of "paper documents" at high prices.