TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

apps

Newspapers, Magazines, and the Apple iPad

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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.

The death of the Open Web has been somewhat exaggerated

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I’ve just been reading through a short and interesting piece by Virginia Heffernan referring to ‘The Death of the Open Web‘.

She compares the move from open websites to the walled garden of apps to the move from cities to suburbs, and with some justification. After all 55 million+ people with an iPhone or iPad are app users, alongside the Murdoch-led impetus for content paywalls to once again attempt to block off certain areas of the web for certain companies.

But I think there are arguments against her two points – and a more pressing threat to the continued life of the open web.

Noone denies the success of the application approach for the iPhone and iPod Touch – the small screen means that applications have proved hugely successful at utilising a smaller space and handheld processing power to achieve great results. And many people are actively downloading enough applications for it to be an income stream which many individuals and businesses have, and will continue, to invest in.

But the iPad? There have been initial sucesses with some applications, but at the same time, many people are reporting that they’re increasing using the fast browser to surf the web just as effectively – if not moreso than many of the lacklustre apps rushed out for launch. A lot of websites are now utilising HTML5 (Including my employers, Absolute Radio), and the built-in connectivity of the open web (I’m thinking hyperlinks as much as social bookmarking) carries a lot of advantages over the application approach.

By the same token, the rise of the paywalls doesn’t mean that everyone will follow, or that they’ll be a sustainable success. Certainly the like of The Guardian will stand to benefit in traffic by remaining open, and for many pieces of content, a free, open alternative will always exist – if not by an existing rival, then from one of the myriad of new people seeing a paywall-created opportunity.

As an example, check out the investments being made by Demand Media, Yahoo and AOL to invest in trafic acquisition by content at the same point as major mainstream news organisations are retreating into their shells.

But the real threat?

That comes from the infrastructure of the internet – one which is not inherently open or closed. And that infrastructure could be increasingly dictated not by evolution or the needs of users, but by the attempts to inforce legality and particularly copyright.

I’m not suggesting that artists and industries don’t have the right to profit from their endeavours, but that the way in which those efforts are currently being enacted could result in effects far beyond the intention to protect content-creators.

For a more comprehensive explanation, I highly recommend Code: Version 2.0 by Lawrence Lessig

That’s the real threat to the Open Web and all the benefits that it brings to the world as a whole.

The Nokia N97: The ultimate geek phone?

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Is the Nokia N97 the ultimate geek phone? You might need to stick with me for a moment while I explain…

So it’s pretty clear that the consumer smartphone market and awareness belongs to the Apple iPhone 3GS, while the business market is owned primarily by RIM’s Blackberry. (For an interesting discussion of the current statistics framed as an examination of Nokia, check out Tomi T Ahonen’s recent posts, particularly this one.)

Meanwhile the flood on Android phones is increasing in pace – the current HTC Hero is about to be joined by a positive plethora of handsets from Samsung, Motorola, HTC and many others.

So the iPhone has pretty much jumped the shark into mainstream awareness, the Blackberry marks you as someone who is emailing at 2am and doesn’t do anything else, and to be able to have geek cred on Android will mean swapping handsets every month and relying on the phone equivalent of trainspotters to recognise what you’re using.

Nokia N97 - Open

Enter the N97.

It’s got good hardware – 5.0 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, video capture, GPS, Wifi, Bluetooth, etc, etc.

But more importantly, the operating system takes time to learn (and indeed to operate!). It’s not easy to use, some things don’t work, and the Ovi Store has problems which have been discussed at length by consumers and developers.

And that’s what makes it the ultimate geek phone.

Ultimate geek stuff isn’t mass market, easy to use, or without character. I’m a big fan of Ubuntu, but I struggle to recommend it to a lot of people, and I’m not alone, due to some simplicity needed for everyday consumers. The same thing applies to Open Office, Gimp, and hand coding everything from scratch.

A while ago Robert Scoble asked on Twitter whether anyone could name someone in their geek circle who actually had an N97. I immediately thought of James Whatley and Corvida, both of whom are more credible phone geeks than me.

So here’s to the N97 and to geek cred for things which require more effort, persistance and curiousity to use than the average person has time or patience for.

Plurk and Jaiku both arrive on the iPhone

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You do remember there are some microblogging networks other than Twitter?

If so, and you have an iPhone, you’ll be happy to know that there’s an official Plurk application, iPlurk, now available via the App store. Ironically for a service that differentiates itself from Twitter with a horizontal timeline and more graphical interface, both aspects have been dropped for the iPhone – then again, if you’re already engaged with the Plurk community, it might make more sense for a lighter interface to update when you’re on the move?

Meanwhile, the Google-owned Jaiku now has it’s own app, developed by third party mJaiku.  It’s got most of the features you’d expect to find, although a test by Darnell Clayton over at Blog Herald reveals that it doesn’t support domain shortening, which may be a significant pain in use. But the good thing is you can contact the developer via Jaiku at raiglstorfer

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