Newspapers, Magazines, and the Apple iPad

While newspaper and magazine publishers have seen some good opportunities and success with the iPhone, the larger form factor of the iPad has definitely seen a huge leap in interest and the number of dedicated newspaper and magazine applications being produced, with figures already being shared by various publications about their success.

The Time sold 5,000 iPad apps in 3 days at £9.99, the Wall Street Journal has 10,000 customers paying $17.29 a month (free to print/web subscribers), The Financial Times has had 130,000 downloads of it’s free application. The Australian has had 4,500 downloads at $4.99 a month, the Guardian Eyewitness free app has had 90,000 downloads. And Wired is apparently selling more copies on the iPad than in print (print sales were quoted at 79,000).

(Figures from conferences I’ve attended, Paidcontent, New York Observer, Venturebeat)

All very impressive…but…

1) Friend and former magazine colleague Dave Cushman makes a point which quite a few other people have also discussed – is this an illusion of a long term future for publishers? He picks up on the open/closed, silo/network challenge, and that many publishers seem to see print sales dropping just because we can’t buy a lovely digital version of a print product. (Ignoring the fact that I carry 2-3 digital devices past at least 2 news stands every morning, with print products which already look good, are eminently portable and mobile already, and don’t require any net connection/investment in a new device).

2) The first month of figures are pretty much meaningless. Talk to me in six months about the number of app downloads, subscriber figures, and revenue. Then it’ll be clear whether the approach you’ve taken to the iPad is actually a solution, or just a very temporary bump.

Most applications will see good figures for the first month or two. They’re new in iTunes and get a little bit of promotion purely for that. And in this case, they’re also getting the bonus of a huge amount of hype around the iPad, and large amount of cross-promotion from the existing print and digital products. Here’s a question – How much revenue was given up in house ads to get the revenue the iPad app has generated?

The iPad is still hugely important:

I’m not denying the impact and value of the Apple iPad. It’s been extremely successful so far ( 2 million already sold), and is definitely driving a new way of accessing digital content (the web as well as apps).

But it’s far to early to say with certainty that the future of digital publishing lies in applications, and particularly in products which haven’t adapted to any benefits of digital distribution other than an easy paywall via iTunes. The larger iPad screen and speedy browser means a great way to surf the web for content without cost in many, many cases. And allows me to see all the peer-created and recommended content that is filtered for value to me in a more effective way than news organisations currently manage.

It’s only when excited new iPad owners have overcome their initial app-downloading frenzy and we can analyse repeat usage we’ll see whether this new distribution channel works for magazines – and whether anyone gets away with packaging the same product.