There is no way around this fact: the first batch of magazines adapted to the iPad failed to deliver. Six months after the initial excitement, the mood has turned turned sour. See the figures below, they show the downturn in circulation for the much publicized iPad versions of a few American magazines:
- Wired: 100,000 downloads in June, 22,500 in October and November : down 78%. According to the Magazine Publishers Association, that’s not even a meager 3% of the average print copy circulation for the first half of 2010 — for an iconic tech magazine…
- Vanity Fair: 10,500 in August, 8,700 in November, down 17% and less 1% of the print sales. (These numbers include single copy sales and subscriptions, which represent the bulk of the print revenues for US magazines).
According to WWD, using figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation, several high profiles glossies show the same pattern: iPad downloads are in sharp decline everywhere.
For this regular user, such numbers do not come as a surprise. I’ve been reading Wired and Vanity Fair in paper form for years. As a non-US reader, the benefit of the iPad version was obvious: instant availability, no need to look for a higher-end newsstand providing international fodder. Plus a serious discount: at a European kiosk, a glossy can fetch €9 or $12; on the iPad, it’s $3.99, I was getting a bargain for my monthly fix. Plus extras such as the occasional video, and the convenience of back issues loaded in the memory chip of my tablet…
What went wrong, then?
1 / Comparison kills. I began to harbor some doubts when traveling to the United States: I realized that, instinctively, I was picking up the very same magazines at newsstands. With the product available at the right combination of time, price and location at nearby kiosks, having it on my iPad suddenly lost its appeal.
A (retroactively obvious) fact emerges: a magazine designed for print is much better on, ahem… paper than on bits. The browsing experience, the photographs, even the sensation of reading long form articles are all more enjoyable on a physical glossy. Publishers lured themselves into thinking electronic convenience plus a dash of add-ons would fill the gap between paper and tablet. Nope, they didn’t. Once ubiquitous availability removed the storage advantage (which only appeals to the road-warriors segment), the magazine on paper won. (Newspapers are a different story).
2 / Convenience. OK, videos or interactive graphics are fun, but they can feel gadgety, creating a kind of visual noise that detracts from the reading experience. Also, the convenience of back issues stored on the device is oversold: in the paper world, when it comes to retrieving an old article, no one will dive into a pile of magazines anymore, that’s the internet’s job. Similarly, due to the rigid browsing experience on a tablet, very few will be tempted to leaf through back issues stored on their device. Carrying a year’s worth of non-searchable issues is therefore useless.
3 / Execution. As I write this column, I download the January 3rd edition of the New Yorker. At least, I’m trying to. The mostly black & white weekly weighs about 100 megabytes and the download stream is erratic. The latest issue of Vanity Fair took several days to finish downloading. (To be fair, the 700 Mb of the latest Wired issue, loaded with videos, was done in a matter of minutes, while the previous one took a solid hour).
Here is what is acceptable: The Economist. Wether I pop up my iPad or my iPhone, the app knows I’m a subscriber and prompts me, showing with the latest issue’s cover. One button. Download. Twenty seconds on a wi-fi, less than two minutes on a 3G network. No login, no purchase confirmation. In addition, my subscription grants me constant and seamless access to the magazine’s web site.
4 / Price. Asking the consumer to pay the same price for an electronic product with a debatable advantage is a bad idea. Two ill-advised concepts (also applicable to newspapers) are at stake here.
Even if they deny it, many publishers are still in the “let’s defend the paper” mode. From a theoretical strategic perspective, a bold move would call for accentuating the decline of the doomed part of the business to give more oxygen to the promising one. Even though a measure of caution is understandable when going through such a transition, the dominant sandbag posture is by no means justified. Its effect is simply to delay the inevitable.
The second idea reflects a related tendency to yield to short-term financial pressures: an electronic magazine costs less to produce? Let’s first and foremost restore our depleted margins. This will have two dangerous consequences: for one, it discourages true innovation; and second, it opens a wide field for pure players unburdened by the past. Until now, publishers have been somewhat preserved by the high barrier to entry into their business: their financial power and business acumen notwithstanding, tech companies have been consistently unable to build a serious editorial venture. This might not last as traditional publications are shrinking and as a new breed of journalists will be more than happy to forgo some of their elders’ prestige in exchange for the freedom to create new and exciting publications.
It would be unfair to blame publishers such as Condé Nast for the the disappointing performances of their iPad first steps. Six months to adjust to a completely new medium seems acceptable. And the current experiences still produce some helpful lessons.
#1 Don’t try and replicate old concepts. Go for new ones. The balance between text and photographs, for instance, needs to be reinvented. The way images are presented and even produced must also be adapted to the new medium. This would be a better use of an art director’s team than, month after month, redesigning a landscape version of a magazine originally intended for a page, like Wired or Time have been doing.
#2 Make up your mind. For tablets, the choice will be between rich media magazine — again, yet to be invented – and content centric, Economist-like, i.e. less sexy but efficient. Ideally, news content for nomad devices should come in two flavors: one, loaded with multimedia, dedicated to tablets that will mostly connect through wi-fi, and another lighter version designed for the mobile phone’s small screen, which relies on low-speed cellular networks.
#3 Encapsulate the web. Personally, right before catching the subway, for a speedy and efficient offline reading, I’d love to have my iPad quickly download a set of 200 URLs of my favorites newspapers web sites. (In real life, cellular data networks still are painfully clunky). With the web, we take for granted things such as multi-layer reading, search and recommendation engines. Unless tablet publishers find a way to offer a unique e-magazine-like experience, these features will be missed.
#3 Price wisely. Don’t expect a wide adoption for the e-version of a magazine (or a newspaper) priced at the same level as the paper version. The pricing structure for online news content begins to emerge. In its recent report (PDF here), the Pew Research Center released data consistent with most publishers’ estimations. People who regularly buy content on the net are willing to spend about $10 a month, which could translate to a yearly ARPU of $100-$120.
If you thing that’s small, just consider the ARPU of advertising supported websites: very few are above the $10/year water line. Another conclusion of the Pew survey: the paid-for market remains highly segmented. Have a peek at this table:
Those who are willing to pay for content are definitely the richest and the most educated. Not necessarily bad news: after all, many businesses thrive in luxury markets….
—frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com
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38 Comments
An interesting column with many strong points. I would make one observation if I could…You seem to be ignoring the fact that very few people truly have access to magazines over the IPAD, which is approaching 10 million users. The comparison I would make would be to the early days of cable TV in the US. When cable only reached 10 million homes, the platforn could not support new networks like CNN or ESPN. It was only when the started to reach 30,40 or 50% of homes in the US when the economics started to work for content providers. Give this new medium time before tearing it up!
That iPad magazine subscriptions are plummeting as iPad sales are soaring shows a large disconnect between what people want to do with an iPad. Of course, it could also reflect a lack of marketing or a lack of the right business model to encourage people to consume their “print” in digital form. Paper is an excellent medium: high resoultion, portable, tactile, robust, instant-on and shareable.
One other observation regarding the failure of magazines and/or newspapers, at least as far as the German market is concerned:
Most of them are simple PDF transfers of the print version. You can double-tap to zoom in and read the articles just fine, but all pictures become blurry. You often have to navigate page by page and can’t jump to sections of interest to you. As an example, I refer to you Axel Springer’s iKiosk, which has most of their (German) newspapers and magazines available. To expect people to pay money for this kind of experience is ridiculous.
IMO, I want two things from e-mags which they currently don’t deliver: 1. The ability to save and search articles so I can refer to them later. Paper is horrible at this. 2. Prices that reflect the true cost of editing and publishing content, not chopping down trees, printing on paper, and then delivering that paper on trucks to the newstand or via snail mail.
I do disagree with the author’s first point. I find the idea of having all of my magazines on a single device that I can carry everywhere and read anywhere *enormously* appealing (and “green” to boot).
In the end, I think publishers just haven’t figured out how to truly leverage the medium yet.
There’s a great deal of valuable insight here, for which, many thanks.
I have a question for Robert (comment 4). What do you consider that fair price to be once paper, printing and physical distribution are removed from the equation? i’ve been researching the viability of a tablet-only magazine and even with all those costs taken out, the economics are pretty unforgiving.
For a magazine-like proposition to have sufficient value to entice people to pay for it, you’d need to offer a magazine-like level of material – say, equivalent to 80 or so pages of original editorial, with a variety of voices and viewpoints. That means you’re looking at a team of at least a dozen writers and more photogrphers/illustrators/videographers/etc.. Let’s say they’re all freelance professionals, so the quality should be decent and you don’t have to pay salaries, and maybe they’d be prepared to work for lower rates than they’d get from established commercial titles because they want to do something more independent and maybe get to cover stories they can’t cover for mainstream outlets. Maybe they’d even forego a fee entirely and work for a share of profits. Let’s also assume you can eliminate a load of ongoing design and subbing costs by publishing your app via a CMS to predesigned templates, and you find someone who can build you that system affordably. And let’s also say you opt to take a huge gamble and each self-edit your work, and don’t get any insurance against libel and other publishing liabilities (because you won’t be able to afford it so you hope that trying hard to avoid mistakes, and keeping your fingers crossed, will be sufficient). You have to also concede that you won’t earn any income from ads from the first edition, because nobody knows how many (if any) you’ll sell.
Even after all that you’re still looking near – *very* conservatively – $50,000-worth of time and effort from those involved just to get one edition published. And that’s only if your content is in a subject area which isn’t expensive to cover, where the stories come to you and don’t cost you anything to research and report. Let’s say you do a really solid PR job and promote your new title relentlessly via social media and you manage to sell 5000 copies (which, from the figures above, looks to be more or less impossible given that you won’t have the visibility or marketing resources of major publishing houses, and they can only manage to shift twice that of their world-famous flagship brands). The cost of editorial on that basis would leave you witha “cover price” of $10 – though you’d need to make it nearer $15 if you’re planning to sell via the Apple App Store because they take a 30 per cent commission. And that’s clearly unsustainable, especially for a product which won’t boast a fraction of the sophisticated presentation of titles produced by established publishers. Yet if you charge a considerably lower price you can only break even by selling Wired June numbers, which would require phenomenal good luck even if you had a million or two to drop on a marketing campaign.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the barriers to entry remain almost as high for tablet publishing as for print – at least, for independent start-ups. You can’t really hope to produce something people will want to buy at a price they’d be willing to pay for a brand new title from an unproven new company. I can see why established publishers have stuck to porting established brands rather than setting up new tablet-specific titles, and suspect that one of the lessons being drawn is that sales are so bad there’s no point even considering tablet-only titles for the foreseeable future. In the process, though opportunities are being wasted and the possibilities of the medium remain unexplored, because those with enough money don’t see the point in experimenting and those who had hoped that tablets might offer a cheap and efficient route to market are, at the moment, finding that this is sadly but most definitely not the case.
mags on the ipad? like listening to a symphony on a walkie-talkie. useless compared to the real thing.
One important why is missing, probably the most important. Access from tablets and phones must be rising dramatically, not for the apps but for the web sites. This is because they integrate into the social stream and the web at large. You can’t link to an app.
Just like paying for Netflix vs pirating movies, I’ll buy ipad mags when convenience, value ads and user experience outweigh cost.
Adds
“It would be unfair to blame publishers”.. I think that publishers didn’t understood the Web ten years ago, and now the ipad and mobile devices.
Related post in french : http://www.pascalrossini.com/wordpress/2010/12/les-magazines-papier-sur-lipad-un-succs-mitig/
Bry Wolf, Cry Pad. Even more reasons in a blog post published almost at the same time:
http://www.garfors.com/2011/01/cry-wolf-cry-pad.html
Good points in the article. I was wondering myself, why I’m underwhelmed by the couple of magazines, Adobe is going to put down into our throats with its inferior frameworks.
And I don’t like those magazines, and here’s why: when WIRED showed up on the iPad, I was very enthusiastic. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get hands on the first issue and was deeply disappointed, when I got my iPad. All the important things, all the specific things an iPad can do better than a PC weren’t here in the E-Magazines. No Copy/Paste, no enhancing of the fonts, and the layouts are very print-old-fashioned.
Then Branson went in with “Project”. I gave it a (second) chance, ’cos Branson often gets it better. Bottom line: same inferior Adobe-framework, some good ideas, an awful layout, that is not iPad-like in any way.
So the iPad Magazines failed? Maybe. Maybe not, because iPad-language is so new, that we all will have to CO-DEVELOP the new language. Remember the first MTV-Programmes? It was some sort of rollercoaster-tv back then, and the MTV-ductus had to develop through years (that MTV is dead by now is another story …).
I’m confident, that “Magazines” will survive on the iPad (and similar devices). But they won‘t look like now – lots of jpgs arranged as articles, filled up with video, sound and other gimmicks.
They will more likely look like Flipboard. Flipboard is the beginning. Imagine a “Magazine” edited professionally with the possibilities of the Web, touchbased and made by people who know good journalism – and you will have the choice to arrange your individual “Magazine”, that is to be paid of course.
THAT will indeed be the future. Give it some time …
This segment is not yet ripe. People get excited and they download the digital format out of hype. Later, they realize that the old thing is still better. Comparison is inevitable. Until a revolutionary new e-zine format can convince people to download their magazine on their tablet and completely ditch the paper, then people will continue to patronize the printed version. I am interested how mobile technologies like QR code is also changing how we use printed media. I don’t know yet. So far I am not contended how majority of digital magazines are delivered.
Oh, I would blame the publishers. They seized the iPad as a way to try to recapture their control over the experience of their editorial products (a serial experience dictated by an editor), brands, and business model. They used the iPad to try to step back. Finally having realized the power of the link, the cut it off. The iPad apps we have seen from publishers are their last gasp.
The fundamental problem: Content is not an app. Apps need to *do* something. Content works quite well on the web. With HTML5, any of the bells and whistles that are shown on an app to “enhance” (that is, tart up) content can be done on the browser … with links!
I clicked through from Jeff Jarvis’s tweet out of curiosity and want to first say thank you for citing our (the Pew Internet Project’s) data.
Professionally, I would agree with MV that this segment of the market is not yet ripe. I also agree with the critique of publishers who do not yet know how to take advantage (just as they didn’t in 1995 — I have some hilarious memories from my days helping to launch usnews.com).
Personally, I just spent a very enjoyable 20-minute bus ride with the iPad version of Martha Stewart Living. I loved the before-and-after photos of her house/garden/apple tart. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth a look as a model for what a digital mag could be.
1. The content in these apps is mostly being repurposed after the print issue is put to bed, by a few people put in charge of publishing it via the app. That’s not a digital-first practice; it’s the same error newspapers and magazines made for years (and many still do) with respect to the web. The writers and photographers who create the content are not even being asked to consider app functionality.
2. On the web, the whole idea of an “issue” is dead. Content is atomized, navigation is via links, and consumers have long ago learned to surf and explore. If an app is an attempt to put the genie back into the bottle, to package up content into weekly or monthly “issues,” without links and social functionality, it will fail.
3. Success may come for publishers who abandon packaged, dated “issues”, who instead deliver a personalized content stream, who enable social functionality and links, and who involve writers, photographers, editors and designers fully in the creation of app-based content.
4. Because tablets are leisure devices more so than computers or even smartphones, the real monetization opportunity on apps will not come from selling subscriptions or advertising, but by inventing new ways to interact with customers: facilitating conversations and blending news, social media and brand messages in order to actually sell stuff and facilitate transactions — in short, to leverage those new relationships of trust into brand new streams of revenue.
(I made these points back in March here: http://newsafternewspapers.blogspot.com/2010/03/ipad-strategies-for-publishers.html)
Jeff,
I agree wholeheartedly about HTML5. Anyone contemplating a new publication targeted at tablets would be daft not to work in that format, they’d also be able to publish as a web app and thus expand their notional market beyond tablet owners to everyone with a browser, albeit without touch-screen functionality.
However, the overall point I was making still stands: the pricing will be key, and for individuals or independent outfits without a significant bankroll reliant on word-of-mouth and social media to promote and market the app, you have to both be cheap enough to entice the curious while charging enough to give yourself a chance of covering costs from sales alone in the short term. That is a significant problem, and may well be the key factor holding back all development in this emergent sector: at present what we seem to be seeing is that those with money enough to spend hold back because they’re not seeing returns significant enough to justify further investment, and independents who are keen to try something new and different are stymied by the significant costs of doing business in this (slightly) new marketplace.
I guess my disappointment is that I thought that, maybe, here was a new business model for people in my position (freelance journalists, as opposed to staffers). So far my business relies on two models – sell my work for a flat fee to a publisher, who then has to work out how to monetise that investment, usually by bundling it with other relevant content in an online or physical package; or self-publish my work and aim to attract income by selling advertising around it, soliciting voluntary donations on the page (Paypal, Tipjar, etc.) or by getting commissions from products sold via links on the page where it’s published. The paywall experiments of Murdoch notwithstanding, it’s already clear that for standalone journalists the chances of charging people to view work online are nil, so the tablet/app concept appeals because, even though the numbers so far are small, it appears that there is a section of the market that is willing to pay to access journalism through this system. And while the necessity of opening it up to outbound links is clear and the desirability of finding some way to open it to inbound ones would clearly help to promote it, the main benefit it offers is for journalists to actually be able to sell their work directly to their readers without going through a middleman.
But if the economies mean that the only way this will work is by chasing the same mass-market numbers that established publishers achieve with their print products, then development of the sector won’t happen from the independents. If the established publishers aren’t pushing it either, then we may never get to see what this format is capable of being.
You could blame publishers. Sure.
Or you could blame readers for expecting a whole industry to change within a couple months of the launch of a product.
But then why did readers expect so much… The trouble was in the overhyping of the product by Apple and tech pundits, creating expectations that could not be met so quickly.
Readership will come back as the industry adapts, it’s called maturing (see The Internet).
Thank you, FF, for the ringing down the curtain on Versioon 1.0 of tablet magazines. Shipping is a feature, and some rather big media cos. shipped. They and we all got the subjective and objective data on what didn’t work; nobody went bankrupt, and (especially this week) no one’s dismissing the tablet form-factor as a fad. We all just might be *learning* something.
Great article Frédèric. I think you’ve got it.
Why do so many people expect do much from eMags when the genre is still finding its way? The early Web was simplistic and sparse. Today it is richer and there is a long way yet to go.
I disagree with gregorylent. I look to media for content. I am not interested in spurious pictures or videos. It is the textual content that contains the core message that I might be interested in. I don’t need to be entertained if I am after information although relevant multimedia supplements can be great. But it is the message that matters. The style of presentation is far less important and busy busy pages are a pain to wade through. Many page designers produce output I would expect from a demented spider on crack cocaine. Your point about the Economist is well made. It is just right for its genre – rich in information and ideas, has gravitas and isn’t noisy.
Give eMags time.
I also disagree that it is impossible for new entrants to gain a toehold in eMags. It’s not easy but, if the content is good, if it hits the spots it aims to hit for readers, it can start small and build a following. We are all drowning in an ocean of information. One answer that will serve and sell to many is abstraction and opinion with links to other related content like full-res pictures and video/audio. Links are key to offering information in a palatable form. Cover the core ideas simply and link to the rest. Give the reader the right to choose how much or how little he wants to review.
I see a market for 99c a month SIG eMags that can shine. It will be a struggle for the first 12-24 months but the idea is to build profitability through scalability. The key to scale in the e-Reading market is usefulness of content at a low price. Ad revenues can kick in gradually to put some icing on that cake.
I hope to see many low-cost magazines covering SIG genres.
I believe that the days of the publishing empire are numbered if they do not grasp the nettle of the new measures of Price to Value in publishing.
I agree with dave on Apple overhyping the ipad, but its almost seems this is what every company does for a new gadget they develope. I mean its all about selling your product, seems sometimes companies forget to match what they say their product can do with what the product itself can actually do. Also with new technology you need to give it time to develop, I mean rome wasn’t built in a day
For everyone who feels it is fair or unfair to blame the pulishers is missing the fact that the new technology just came out, and is not available to everyone yet. Only about 10 million people have access like Jeff says. It is not quite a digital breakthrough that people can all have as easy as buying from the street. I feel the writter and editor made paper magazine’s better because only the rich and luxurous people ready only from the interent or there IPAD, and also the paper magazine is a better ready on his opinion.
Comparison Kills: This is a habit of yours and many content consumers. Availability of the information in other mediums like digital have been around for quite some time. The publicThere was a reason or intent of you entering a publication kiosk, be it at an airport or mall, you instinctively went in to look for various publications that either were not available to you on your iPad or were touting an article that interested you.
Convenience: The interactivity seeming gimmicky is one of 2 things, either it is because the publication is indeed using it as a gimmick to sell more content and presenting it to the user as such or, this is the ramifications of other publications use of it spilling over to those that are using the available options in order to provide a more rich and engaging experience to the content that was previously unavailable to do.
Execution: The execution is something that cannot be commented on in full yet. As you state earlier, the technology has been available for the last 6 months and is. mostly / only, on 1 device. Many publishers are trying to embrace the technology as it is coming out, something that the printing industry is not well known for to begin with. The filesize concerns with many of the current methods of providing content is well known to producers of the content and it is something that many of the vendors of the solutions are looking at solving. Their initial concerns were more focused on, as with any new and emerging technology, being the early leader.
Price: Publishing costs for digital and printed material are very similar. Contrary to many peoples’ beliefs, providing an engaging, content rich article, let alone full publication, is a time consuming and difficult thing to do. Video production needs time to work on the post production, interactive elements have to be tested for various bugs, content has to be developed, designed, and placed in a layout for multiple orientations and soon to be multiple aspect ratios. Then there is the service of providing the content to the end user. Bandwidth, like stated in Execution, is something that is currently a concern for both consumers and content providers. This comes with a price. The cost of manufacturing the digital edition, in most cases, exceeds that of the printed with the exception of the actual physical printing and shipping. That cost is taken up in the distribution at this time by Apple. Any in-app purchases will be cut by 30% to the producers. There are a multitude of costs that I am not mentioning as I only have so much room, however know that there are even more to come for anybody developing this technology.
#1 Don’t try…: I agree mostly with this statement however believe, and am trying to, put together a group up publishers that can work with the technologies available and that are being developed to create a sort of standard for aspects of best practice. For instance, notification of navigation options for users, file size guidelines, format standards, etc…
#2 Make up your Mind: This is coming and has been on the road map for all publishers and solution providers. The problem is that because the technology is a mere 6 months old and for the majority of that, there has been only 1 ‘tablet’ device available, it is hard to develop for products that do not exist and for markets that still have yet to decide what they are.
#3 Encapsulate the web: This is coming. Trust me on this. I have and I know others that are developing abilities for just this. It is something that both magazines and newspaper publishers want most likely more than you.
#4 Price wisely: As stated above, price is something that a lot of people have yet to understand when they talk about the cost of the digital version. The one thing that will help however is the understanding that publishers want to know you. They want to understand who you are, your interests, and who impacts your life. Advertising is the one thing that most of the publishing industry leans on. If the advertisements in publications were able to target individuals directly along with provide an engaging experience to the user, publications would be able to charge the advertisers more and in turn reduce the cost of the issue itself. The cost of the publications to produce would remain the same but the economical balance shifts.
@Jarvis Have you re-bought an iPad yet? Because as far as I recall you took it back to the store after 2 weeks(?). X millions iPad buyers seem to disagree with your quote that “the iPad falls between two devices; it will fail”.
Now that doesn’t mean I disagree with you on HTML5 being the future vs apps, but your negativity is bad.
After reading this article, I agree that reading an actual magazine on paper rather than on an iPad is more beneficial. I prefer reading an actual magazine rather than using technology because I am able to “dog ear”a page or rip out a page that I want to keep and use (i.e tips on something). You cannot do this with an iPad. I have an iPad and rarely use it. I rarely use it mainly because I also have a Macbook and an iPhone, and find that owning an iPad is no different than using either of these machines. I only use my iPad to buy books. I like using the iPad for reading books because I usually get irritated reading from paperbacks for several reasons. However, I agree with this article on the fact that actual magazines and newspapers are better than reading a newspaper or magazine on an iPad. I also agree that they should not charge the same price.
One thing not mentioned is the roll of advertisers in digital magazines. Advertising helps offset some of the production costs. Print advertisers look at magazine circulation, readership income, and quality of product to determine where they spend their ad dollars. With digital editions of magazines, will advertisers back out?
Will there be more opportunity for advertisers to get more for their buck? Can they change their ad mid issue? I believe there is an opportunity somewhere in all this, but it’s evolving too fast to keep up.
when the ipad first came out, i was so excited to get one because instead of carrying around a bunch of books and magazines, i would have it all on one device. Now after having the iPad for a couple of months, i feel like i have bought more printed magazines and books than i have bought on the iPad. Printed books are so much easier to read than reading books/ magazines on the iPad. iPads dont have as much to offer as magazines do. Perfumes/ samples of products, for example. You cant smell a perfume while reading Vogue on the iPad. So, not only are magazines being hurt by this, but companies putting samples of there products are in the magazine are being hurt also. Also, i think iPads should lower the price of the book/magazines. They should not charge the same price as they would if you were buying the printed version.
I think the article makes a very good point about e-magazines taking away from the “fun” of browsing through magazine aisle at your local bookstore or grocery store. I have considered many times getting an e-reader because I enjoy reading and I think it would be great to just be able to download another book wherever I have wi-fi. Although it would be very efficient for when I travel, there is just something about having the physical book, and besides I wouldn’t have anything to put on my bookshelves. Being the nerd that I am, I also enjoy browsing around Books-A-Million whenever I have free time. I also think the ipad itself still has a long way to go before some people are convinced they “need” one.
I think that this article is very interesting and helpful for people that are in between buying an Ipad or e-reader. I believe that once these devices get more advanced that they could very easily be more popular than physical books or magazines. The idea of having all of your favorite readings all on one device sounds very appealing. I do agree with many comments on how having the physical book or reading material in your hand is more satisfying but times are changing. Ipads and e-readers may very well be the future of reading in no time at all.
The iPad is the most overrated device by the media industry. They simply think that taking paper content adding some mulitmedia like video and, volià, they will have a winning platform on the iPad.
Well, as your article has shown that is not the case. First, the media industry has to understand what new media is all about. And unfortunately, multimediality is the most unimportant ideosyncracy of new media. Activity, Interactivity, Ubiquity of the media are by far more important. Second, design new business model that fit to new media. Do we know what will be the winning business model? Unfortunately, no. We have to experiment and work via try & error.
Take a look at http://blog.business-model-innovation.com/2009/09/who-says-paper-is-dead-business-model-innovation-in-the-newspaper-industry/
By the way, I earn money with my free content. No ads, no direkt income from my blog but I can share some ideas on business model innovation, a niche topic in strategic management. And via good articles, I get payed jobs. Can newspapers do this? Not with sticking to their traditionell content model.
Thanks Frederic for your great blog on “Failing ipad Magazines” the best we have read so far!
It’s a very thorough analysis of what is happening and it explains why TRVL is probably one of the only magazines which is doing well.
It’s iPad exclusive, it’s free, it’s reinventing magazine publishing and not surprisingly it sees a steady increase in both positive feedback and downloads.
Kind regards,
Jochem Wijnands
Still early days, but evolution is rapid…from my experience speaking with all sorts of publishers, most do get that their CMS will become very important moving forward with custom HTML applications. In addition, templates are now available to make the design transition quite easy. Many may in fact use their own feeds to be read in these new web environments. Readers certainly appreciate dynamic content coupled with an “app-like” reading experience.
What is the problem with an iPad magazine being a magazine on an iPad? Why does it also need to do other things such as iron shirts, make the tea or have sex? It’s a magazine!
As a former hack, I can see many people’s expectations about creating content are a little, um, naive. If you want to create a title that works, be ready to support two years of loss before knowing if your title has a chance to fly. You could get lucky, but you’re better planning for the mid-term.
It would be nice if Apple developed tools for creating content on the iPad. Why leave it to Adobe, they obviously haven’t cared enough to develop an App specifically for content creation on tablets.
Thanks for the great advice. New years is a great time to refocus and come up with some new goals for any small business. Look over last years profits and this year, reach a little higher. Thanks.
The information presented regarding the WIRED app size is incorrect. You stated, “To be fair, the 700 Mb of the latest Wired issue, …”
I cannot recall an issue of the WIRED Digital Edition being 700 MB, so I would appreciate if that was corrected. The largest issue I recall producing was about 450 MB in the 2010 November issue.
In recent editions, the range has been 350 – 390 MB, and we are doing all we can to optimize the files to keep it within this range, and hopefully lower in the future.
Keep in mind that the tools are new, and I expect the app sizes to come down in the future as the publishing products we use mature, and our export capabilities improve.
For those wanting sharing functionality, this is not currently part of the publishing tool, but we have added our own sharing functionality — twitter, facebook, and email — to four of our May stories, and we will add more shareable stories to future editions as our process develops.
At WIRED, we are as concerned about the production value of our digital edition products as we are about their creativity. Thanks for reading WIRED on the iPad, as the tools mature, I am sure the way we deliver digital editions will continue to improve.
Sincerely,
Ron Licata
Production Director,
WIRED magazine
thanks for sharing.I enjoy it.
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Därför är försäljningen av tidningsappar på iPad inte så dålig…
Förra veckan skrev jag om att försäljningssiffrorna för iPad-utgåvorna av tidningar har haft en sjunkande trend. Flera stora amerikanska titlar har fått se försäljningen dala. Nu publicerar Mashable en bra artikel som försöker förklara varför. En intre…
[...] BONS CONSELHOS para quem acha que fazer dinheiro com o iPad são favas contadas – iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0. [...]
[...] war brewing between Apple and Google to win over the magazine business even as media mavens have all but declared the iPad magazine dead on arrival. In the interest of setting expectations–especially as we await the news of iPad [...]
[...] iPad Publishing: Time to Switch to v2.0 – Monday Note [...]
[...] Magazines on the i-Pad and why they are not working. [...]
[...] iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0 [...]
[...] motivazioni “tecniche” dell’insuccesso, il peso dei dowloads, la cattiva fattura delle applicazioni, il costo eccessivo, ed altro [...]
[...] semanas estamos viendo varios análisis de la necesidad de evolucionar las app ipad hacia el ipad 2.0 (menos dependencia del medio impreso y [...]
[...] [...]
[...] Another good article and observation around digital magazines and newspapers is written by Frédéric Filloux in the Monday Note blog. [...]
[...] een app wordt, dan wordt het een app die iets kan DOEN (zoals Jarvis al aangeeft in de discussie op mondaynote.com). En apps werken alleen goed als ze one-purpose zijn. Een moodboard. Een puzzel. Een wekker. Een [...]
[...] reports of the quick decline in downloads for mainstream magazines have people buzzing. Why the drop? Are people just not willing to pay for magazines on the iPad? [...]
[...] Frédéric Filloux di Monday Note, i motivi sono molti. Prima di vederli assieme, è meglio ricordare una caratteristica cruciale del web: la frenesia. [...]
[...] iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0 | Monday Note [...]
[...] iPad Publishing [...]
[...] It seems not.Here are some other views on the iPad magazine failure:Frédéric Filloux writing at Monday Note:“Don’t expect a wide adoption for the e-version of a magazine (or a newspaper) priced at [...]
[...] of magazines adapted to the iPad failed to deliver, writes Frédéric Filloux of Mondaynote in the best blog we have read about the [...]
[...] iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0 | Monday Note [...]
[...] eerste nummer bekijken that’s it. Er moeten nog veel lessen geleerd worden. Hier een artikel met een [...]
[...] iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0 | Monday Note [...]
[...] venta de revistas en iPad han terminado en un sonoro fracaso como nos explica Frédéric Filloux en iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0, mientras que -a pesar de todo- los nuevos soportes están liquidando los hábitos y prácticas de [...]
[...] tijdschriften als Wired en Vanity Fair zitten zes maanden na de eerste euforie al met de kater. Hun app-verkopen lopen snel terug. Waarom? Omdat je geen printmodel moet kopiëren naar een app, [...]
[...] par av de gode internasjonale mediebloggene har reflektert litt rundt hva dette kan skyldes. Monday Note lister opp flere ting de mener har gått galt. Blant annet noen gode poenger om “execution”, eller gjennomføringskvaliteten på det [...]
[...] Monday Note chuck in their thoughts on same. [...]
[...] sul settore dei contenuti digitali”. E’ ciò che Frédéric Filloux sintetizza nel primo dei quattro insegnamenti che il calo delle vendite dei primi magazine su iPad hanno lasciato: Don’t try and replicate old [...]
[...] i dati sulle vendite delle applicazioni editoriali per iPad e penso che in troppi (con le solite eccezioni) siano ancora convinti che l’innovazione tecnologica da sola sia sufficiente: gli editori [...]
[...] CES 2011 现场专题iSeed 访谈iShout 投稿英雄榜BBS 论坛关于#ifanrLive!Event12一iPad 出版业：是时候 2.0 了 张恒 于 2011-1-12,07:00 Comments (0) 归类于：Tablet & eBook & Netbook, 业界趋势 标签： iPad, Tablet & eBook & Netbook.这是 Frédéric Filloux 的一篇关于 iPad 电子杂志的思考文章，他总结了电子版的优劣，也说出了自己期待的一些改进点。这将会是乔布斯即将带来的 2.0 吗？谁都不能否认这个事实：iPad 上的第一批电子杂志并没有达到预期的效果。最初六个月的兴奋期过去，现在情况已经越来越糟，下面列出的一些数据，足以说明这个问题：《连线》（Wired）：在六月份的下载量是 10 万次，在十月和十一月的下载量是 2 万 2 千次，下降了 78%。出版商表示，它只占到实体出版量的 3%，简直微不足道，这可是一本典型的科技杂志。《名利场》（Vanity Fair）：在八月份的下载量是 1 万次，在十一月的下载量是 8700 次，下降了 17%。这只占到实体出版量的 1%。根据 WWD 的统计数据，电子杂志的下降趋势几乎蔓延到整个 iPad 平台。作为一名普通读者，其实这样的数据并不让人惊讶，我这么多年已经习惯于阅读纸质的《连线》和《名利场》。但是，对于非美国本土读者来说，iPad 版的优点显而易见：没必要煞费苦心寻找高级报刊亭，你随时都能获取到新鲜的杂志，而且，电子版的价格或许还更加优惠呢。在欧洲一本 9 欧元或 12 美元的杂志，在 iPad 上可能只卖 3.99 美元，电子杂志里还额外赠送一些视频，多棒啊。优点这么多，下载量却逐月下降，这是怎么回事啊？1.质感我发现，在报刊亭上拿起杂志，会出于本能地跟周围的杂志进行对比，然后决定是否购买。而在 iPad 上呢？突然间它就失去了这种魅力。更明显的情况是，印刷精美的纸质杂志，比印在比特流上的电子杂志更好。阅读的体验，排版，照片，甚至纸的物理光泽，都让人更加愉悦。出版社试图在电子版上增加一些额外的惊喜（例如视频）来填补它跟纸质杂志的差距，但他们失败了。纸质杂志赢了。（电子报纸是另外一回事）2.便利OK，交互式体验很有趣，能够用声音和视频营造出一些气氛。但这也是一种噪音，它降低了阅读的乐趣。或许有人会说，电子版的方便之处是便于搜索。是的，要想在一堆旧杂志中寻找一篇旧文章，还真不是件容易的事。但是，当你真把一整年的杂志储存在 iPad 上时，又有多少机会去翻阅旧刊呢？3.下载当我写这篇文章时，我试图下载 1 月 3 号的《纽约客》，连接速度很不稳定，100 MB 的体积要花费很长时间才能下载完毕。而最新一期的《名利场》甚至下载了几天时间才搞定。《经济学人》就不错，在我的 iPod 和 iPhone 上都装了，打开这个 App ，它就能显示出最新一期的封面和下载按钮。下载的过程很快，WiFi 环境下 20 秒完成，3G 环境下 2 分钟也够了。不需要登录帐号，也没有繁琐的确认流程。4.价格要求消费者用纸质杂志的价钱购买电子版是不明智的。这是屈服于短期的资金压力吗？电子杂志的成本到底低不低？其实出版商一直在设立门槛，来保护自己的业务。科技公司无法进入这个领域。这带来的危险后果是阻碍了真正的创新。所以，根据目前 iPad 上的经验，可以总结出一些教训。1.不要再抱着陈旧的观念了，拥抱新事物。在文字和图片之间取得新的平衡。例如，图片呈现的方式必须适应新媒体。或许还应该雇佣新的美工团队，重新设计杂志在横屏上的表现。《连线》和《时代》正在这么干。2.选择合适的道路。对于杂志来说，有两条路：一是像《经济学人》那样走纯文字的道路，二是走多媒体道路。理想状况下，可以两者兼顾。为小屏幕，低网速的设备提供文字内容，为大屏幕，高网速的设备提供多媒体内容。3.离线阅读。我自己喜欢在地铁等离线状态下快速阅读一些东西。所以我的 iPad 可以一次性下载 200 个网站的内容，然后慢慢阅读。在现实生活中，蜂窝网络总是痛苦而缓慢的。联网时，理所当然地使用搜索和推荐等功能，但出版商要考虑到离线的状态。4.价格更诱人。不要指望把电子版的杂志卖到纸质版的价钱。Pew 研究中心的数据显示，大多数用户只愿意每月花 10 美元来购买网络内容。这样算下来用户每年的支出会是 100-120 美元，这个数字也不小了。要知道很多以广告为生的网站，每年每用户的收益才 10 美元。当然现阶段收入最高的群体是电子杂志的主力消费人群，就像这张图显示的：不知道默多克和乔布斯联手打造的新媒体，会不会让 iPad 电子杂志浴火重生。2.0 ，来吧。via mondaynote [...]
[...] via mondaynote [...]
[...] via mondaynote [...]
[...] estadi primerenc i amb una tecnologia que cal desenvolupar. Els analistes insisteixen que continuem fent revistes de paper per acabar veient-les en una pantalla tàctil, i que això, s’acaba [...]
[...] WWD recently reported, iPad magazine sales are in sharp decline in many places, and French media commentator Frédéric Filloux argues media organisations have to acknowledge that the first batch of media iPad apps have simply [...]
[...] Filloux, on Monday Note, writes about the current problems with iPad publications. “There is no way around this fact: the first [...]
[...] risposta a questi interrogativi epocali sembra darla già Frédéric Filloux su Monday Note, secondo cui è inutile girare attorno alla questione: la prima sfornata di riviste adattate all’iPad ha [...]
[...] como resolver esta questão? Bom, sugestões podem ser encontradas no Monday Note. A tarefa não é simples e não existe receita mágica. Os desafios são colocar o preço correto [...]
[...] El precio es la gran cuestión. Por qué pagar más por la suscripción a una aplicación del iPad que a la revista en papel. Los [...]
[...] El precio es la gran cuestión. Por qué pagar más por la suscripción a una aplicación del iPad que a la revista en papel. Los [...]
[...] Den franske mediekommentatoren Frédéric Filloux mener de skuffende salgstallene for internasjonale mediers iPad-apps gjør at vi må bare innse at den første bølgen med medieapps for iPad har mislykkes. [...]
[...] or games, but not necessarily for content applications (see previous Monday Notes on the subject: iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0 , Rebooting Web Publishing Design , Key Success Factors for a tablet-only “paper” ). In fact, [...]
[...] war brewing between Apple and Google to win over the magazine business even as media mavens have all but declared the iPad magazine dead on arrival. In the interest of setting expectations–especially as we await the news of iPad [...]
[...] es lo que ha fallado? ¿Por qué no han logrado convencer a los lectores las revistas? Varios blogueros culpan al elevado precio y a las descargas lentas. Otros a la falta de suscripciones [...]
[...] few months ago Frédéric Filloux wrote an article on Monday Note about the Publishing Failures on the iPad. In short, Frédéric’s point is that it’s [...]
[...] for the forest to download to our iPad. Frédéric Filloux at the Monday Note called it correctly when he wrote: I realized that, instinctively, I was picking up the very same magazines at newsstands. With the [...]
[...] #3 Encapsulate the web. Personally, right before catching the subway, for a speedy and efficient offline reading, I’d love to have my iPad quickly download a set of 200 URLs of my favorites newspapers web sites. (In real life, cellular data networks still are painfully clunky). With the web, we take for granted things such as multi-layer reading, search and recommendation engines. Unless tablet publishers find a way to offer a unique e-magazine-like experience, these features will be missed. iPad publishing: time to switch to v2.0 | Monday Note [...]
[...] went wrong with the first batch of iPad magazines? Pretty much [...]