9 reasons why news publishers should exist on the iPad

Pedro Monteiro, the Art Editor from Impresa Group (publisher of Expresso and Visao), is an expert on new digital narratives, and has been one of the first visual journalism editors to embrace and master the iPad applications. During the INMA’s Oxford Tablet Summit, he pointed out the nine key concepts of existance on the iPad:
1. Content is everything
2. New digital narratives and finding a new grammar. Each piece of information has its place in a chain. Develop new skills and a new storytelling grammar. most important are the ideas – finding the best way to tell your story.
3. News you can read watch and touch. Readers expect to be driven deep into story with multimedia article on i Pad is a package of experiences. Mix all the old media, including the web (Time magazine) on iPad.
4. It’s a silent device, untill you want sound. Sound can play a huge role in storytelling. Where a written text has constraints in print, on a tablet, an audio file with one slideshow can deliver a lot more information to your readers.
5. A tablet is not a website, so don’t do it as a website. Neither it is a pdf reader version of the printed newspaper. It should show a perfect balance between the slow pleasure of reading and the richness of experiencing the digital content. Good storytelling is all about the deifferent experience of the readers.
6. One newspaper, many applications. Easier to produce themed, valued and timely special apps.
swuch special apps can be created for many types of events, planned or unplanned
Only limit for the spps is the imagination of the newsroom team.
7. Keep advertising very much in mind. Don’t be afraid to try new ideas and work closely with the newspaper’s advertising team.  Provide advertisers with the tablet knowledge and help creating amazing experience. Readers will evaluate an app as a whole, editorial content and advertising together.
8. Navigation must be simple. If the app has the section for explaining the navigation, it has been wrongly prepared.
9. Always think beta test. Neither newsroom nor readers have full knowledge of how app should look like. Important to listen to readers’ opinions.  These are early days, beta thinking and constant evolution are expected and will be accepted by the audience.

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