Wired app for iPad: from words to action

So here it is, just before the European and Asian premiere of iPad, Wired magazine joined other publishers with its iPad application. Take a look at it, as it could soon become a benchmark for other newsmedia organisations.

Wired is one of the most popular magazines for the digital generation. While publishing information about the new devices, it would impossible to stay out of it.

Earlier this year we could see some sample pictures - prototypes of the planned Wired iPad application. Below you can watch the final product – available since last Wednesday. Check it out, and please do take a look at the advertising possibilities.

There are two different layouts of the application – vertical and horizontal. Articles and pictures are presented similar to how they look like in a magazine, and user can slide through pages just as he was browsing through a paper mag. Extra experience can be gained after clicking through different pages: texts, pictures and ads.

Chris Anderson, Wired’s editor in chief, is the messenger of the free content (if you have not read his book “Free” yet, make sure you do that – it is available in iTunes, as an audiobook, out of charge). In that case, Wired iPad app serves paid content – the magazine on iPad costs exactly the same as its printed version: $4,99. Subscriptions  rates are not yet available.

The hype for iPad comes to Europe and Asia

May 28th was the first day of iPad sales in Europe and Asia. Long lines in front of Apple stores on this day suggest, this device may become very popular outside of the US as well.

Publishers are aware that the success of their strategies on tablets depends on the popularity of these devices in their countries. First real life evaluation of the demand for iPads in Europe and Asia prove, it is not a usual gadget, that could be ignored.

Last Friday, iPad hit the streets of Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Canada. In the second largest world economy – Japan, lines of 1,200 consumers were reported. In United Kingdom, the first consumers came to wait for iPad 36 hours before the premiere, similar in Australia. It seems, hype over iPad is spreading. In next step, in June, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, and Luxembourg are going to join the group of countries selling iPads. Here is how the iPad premiere in Japan looked like:

European prices of iPads are pretty similar. WiFi only model costs about £429 (16GB) or £599 (64GB), and WiFi/3G models cost respectively £529 (16GB) or £699 (64GB). In Japan, also two versions of iPad are being sold (WiFi and 3G), and the prices start from 48,800 yen and 61,800 yen respectively. Also, pay plans for the internet access on iPads are being released. Example of such payplan in the UK: (a) £7,50 a month for 1GB of data monthly on Hutchinson’s Whampoa’s 3 network, (b) £25 for 10GB a month on Orange, (c) pay-as-you-go and daily plans are also being prepared.

Estimated sales level of iPads in new markets is not known yet. As soon as they are known, forum4editors will be here with this information. Just for comparison, over 1 million iPads were sold in the US in the first month. At the beginning of May, after the US premiere of the iPad 3G model, 350,000 iPads were sold during one weekend only.

Picture: John.Karakatsanis from flickr

Conclusions from the Oxford tablet summit

iPad, and other tablets are expected to be the saviors for publishers and their content. This is not an advertisement but the most important conclusion from INMA’s and INNOVATION’s Oxford Tablet Seminar that took place on May 18th in Oxford, UK. Read more to learn the major findings from the one day’s session dedicated to tablets and newspaper content.

Tablets are not a replacement for newspapers. Paper will stay, but its business model and content proposition has to change. Newsmedia companies have to focus on the SOUL of their products, what stands for: sensuality, omnipresence, uniqueness and lightness. In order to do so, tablets have to be included in their strategy.

iPads are a great chance for newspapers, since they give newsmedia publishers the possibility to charge for their content since day one.  But they are a great change in the media game, and they enforce the newsrooms should change their workflows. App developers are the employers who will be mostly needed in the tablet era.

Publishers should think about the new way of storytelling. Content is king, but words are only a part of it. Eye-catching, interactive infographics could be tablet applications themselves. Newsmedia companies should plan how many target groups can they reach and dedicate their applications to those groups specifically, instead of trying to reach the largest group possible with one app only.

If you are curious what an application should look like, read about apps from the designer’s point of view. Application is neither a newspaper or a magazine. Designers should think about templates, personalization, technology, and the right flow of the information. Bearing that in mind make sure you learn the nine key concepts of publishers’ existance on iPad.

Some of the speakers called iPad the new frontier for newsmedia companies. Publishers admit that their biggest mistake of all time was to offer their content online for free. While it is barely impossible to change that now, after 15 years, with the new frontier content on the new platform may be charged for from the very beginning.

The importance of content on tablets was stressed out in every speech, but one of the speakers looked at iPad as the world’s biggest distraction. It allows the users experience much more with their readings, but is at the same time a device you can watch, play games or listen. The other activities may be a bit disruptive but even that can be fought by the strong content.

Thinking about their tablet strategies, the publishers must think about a coherent pricing strategy. Readers should be let to decide what they want to pay for, and publishers should watch that closely and learn from it. Another interesting issue is advertising on tablets. While readers on the web are more and more ad-reluctant, tablets allow ads become a content again, just as in newspapers.

In quick brainsnacks, five extremely interesting presentations were shown. Read them to learn the key points on how to succeed with tablets or get some thoughtful ideas about the existance on the tablet platform.

Brainsnacks: key concepts of paid content and advertising on tablets

During the afternoon brainsnack session of INMA’s Oxford Table Summit, speakers had only 7 minutes to speak about how e-reader first-movers are aiming to generate new revenue from advertisers and consumers. Learn what John Einar Sandvand (Digital Media Strategist, Aftenposten), Nic Newman (Co-Founder, BBC News Online), Jonathon Moore (Product Manager, The Guardian), Nils Öhman, (Head of DN Digital, an arm of Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter), and Jessie Wijnants (Strategic Director, Boondoggle Belgium) shared with their listeners.

Newspaper competition in e-reading – John Einar Sandvand

e-reading is emerging as important digital platform. It raises new opportunities for user payments. Other players than media companies were dictating the rules of the game, like format or pricing. Media companies were loosing their relationship with users in new models. The time for cooperation of 3 Swedish newspapers has come.

They set a common project of three newspapers , to explore possibilities of common distribution, and collect knowledge of how people actually use newspapers on e-readers. The papers decided to do something together. Here is what they learned:

• information structure is a key to success
• in a long run, copying the print product onto new platform is not sufficient
• ipad is a much richer product and new distribution model
• media tablets exist on three levels: browser version, basic newspaper reader (pdf reader), premium multimedia products (sophisticated apps)
• being proactive together makes those papers beter off.

5 points that are necessary to succeed in tablets.

1. Make sure you are in the content business not the newspaper business. It’s a hard cultural challenge.
2. Make sure you are in control of your information structure: content without metadata has no value
3. Make sure you offer unique value to your reader (scarcity)
4. Make sure you design i Pad product to make full use of the possibilities of the platform.
5. Make sure you create compelling and coordinated experiences acreoss platforms and user situations.

Nic Newman, Co-Founder, BBC News Online, said it is very easy to get excited with tablets, as they are surely changing the game. He also pointed out the opportunities and challenges of tablets:

1. Do one thing and do it well – fundamental difference between the openweb and the use of the applications
2. Make it personal – key problem is to understand our audience and personalize it
3. Make it visual – it is not a new tool simply to make it like a newspaper. Graphics, pictures and interaction will be extremely important.
4. Make it exclusive. Only exclusivity can be paid for.
5. Engage and don’t interrupt, be careful with the ads.

The BBC iPad application was launched on March 31st 2010, and had only 6 weeks development time. It is now in top 5 news apps in the US.

Jonathon Moore, the Product Manager from “The Guardian” illustrated his views on the use of tablets and the iPad.

He is sure, users will pay for a great product. So their ambition is to be the world’s best. As far as creativity is concerned, they try to innovate elegantly. Within the user experience they believe simple is best.

“The Guardian” knows, that if it wants to earn money, it has to delightthe audience. Guardian is now able to produce the most compelling digital experiences ever. You can learn about it yourself – click here to learn more about theguardianeyewitness.

Guardian Eywitness was a site project, 6 weeks end-to-end, based on a sponsorship model, aided web processes. Simple, effective, and eye-catching.

Jesse Wynants from Boondoggle shared his ideas for the always on magazine.

1. From static to dynamic content. Static – simple tv schedule like on the BBC website. How can we make static content dynamic? A plugin enabling the discussion for people watching the tv at the moment. Once you engage people to it, it’s easier to get money from it.
2. Intuitive ads. On a website there is one boring banner. There are nicer ways to integrate. “Draw me a dreamcar” (using your finger on a touchscreen). Or based on the drag and drop mechanism.
3. Context is key. iPad is a social device. Knowing your reader and giving him the ads he really needs.
4. Realtime feedback in a magazine. Answering the question in advertisement by the user.
5. Loyalcation = loyality+location. Connecting GPS with users preferences. What we can know for example is that somebody reading Wired is in Oxford at the very moment. Why not send him personalized advertisement tempting him to read Wired in Starbucks in Oxford and get a cup for free?
6. Articles enriched with branded content.
7. Take a fresh start. Don’t build on something that is already broken. If there really is something like ad reluctancy, let’s not follow the bad habits rom the web.

Nils Öhman, Head of DN Digital looked at 7 questions every publisher should answer before bringing a newspaper to the iPad:

1. People only read newspapers half of the time they consume them. Question: how can we create overview and a browsable paper on the small e-reader screen?
2. Readers appreciate ads in our newspaper, but they don’t like it on our web. Question: How can we make readers appreciate ads in a digital newspaper?
3. People often choose newspaper as an expression of identity. It is a social issue. Question: Can we support this if we lock our content in a paid app in an e-reader?
4. You can finish your newspaper, but you can never finish a news site. Question: Should the digital paper be finite and delivered once a day? Or should it be continously updated? Or something in between?
5. A news publication can be seen as a service or as a product. Question: Will readers expect to have the same content in their e-readers, mobiles or computers.
6. It is possible to create new smart services in a digital newspaper. Question: How important are services as archives, scrap books, social media connections?
7. In times of economic pressure we tend to care less about storytelling Question: How can we develop the digital storytelling of tomorrow?

How tablets and mobile apps will change the web

During INMA’s Oxford Tablet Summit, Fréderic Filloux, Editor and Publisher at the The Monday Note, France, spoke about the shift of users and content from web to mobile devices.

At first, Fréderic Filloux underlined the major difference between the platforms – navigation varies between the web and mobile devices.  On the web, users navigate either through the brand directly, or through the search. In order to do so, filters and aggregators are used. Contrary, on mobile navigation is mostly done by function, whereas the search is excluded.

The applications are a big advantage for the media. They are engaging in many ways:

• they capture readers’ attention,
• people stay longer on in the application than on a web page,
• they are transactional,
• thay boosts traffic many many times

There are 3 major rehabilitations for tablets:
1. re-bundle – web has killed the cross subsidies. It scattered / dispersed the information. Killed the value in the process: endless inventories, unsold for a large part.
2. length – it has a great potential for innovative formats. Long form journalism is more attractive on iPad. 60-120 pages investigative or narrative piece sold for 5 dollars can make a sort of business model. Of course, we are talking about the new kind of books: lively, up-to-date, news related, and searchable.
3. visual - tablets open new space for visual and graphic content

Digital advertising basically doesn’t work nowadays, both on mobile, and on the web. People are more and more ad reluctant. The ads that can be seen on mobiles or on the web today are poorly designed (poor job of advertising agencies), invasive, badly sold (low tech selling), and discount obsessed. Closed applications will solve these problems. Advertising, thanks to tablets, may again become a content, just as it is in printed newspaper.

Due to three reasons (increasingly closed environment, north korea like policies, and propensity to exclusive deals), tablets will be the new gatekeepers.

Let readers decide what they want to pay for

Carlo Campos, Director of Innovation Media Consulting in Spain was a guest speaker during the INMA’s Oxford Tablet Summit. Read his advice to publishers about how they should develop their iPad strategies.

As million iPads have been sold so far, the first question to ask by the Innovation was where Ipad is mostly used? The answers in the research were obvious:

• more home than office
• for travelling
• sofa
• bed
• toilet

Here are the reasons for using the iPad:

• consume media
• mail
• web surfing
• (nobody said gaming, but it sure is also the reason)
• cooking

The 3 early takeaways from this speech were thad iPad is a lean back device, mad for consumption (not production) and dedicated to online and offline usage.
Carlo Campos dedicated part of his speech to the economics of scarcity. People will not pay for useful relevant valuable. They will consume it but not necessarily pay for it. They will pay for something that is scarce. Publishers should think about their scarcity.

Google has found scarcity in the internet: proprietory algorithms, opportune context, limited search terms.

Where is scarcity for publishers? Their scarce resources are:

• unique content,
• unique utility,
• unique convenience,
• unique packaging,
• unique experience.

Those should become the core of the publishers’ paid models on iPads. Hard question comes right away:
how to set the price? No matter which model publishers choose, whether it is free, paid, mixed or freemium, publishers should make it flexible. They should allow customers decide what they want to pay for. A coherent pricing strategy across all platforms is definitely needed. If one’s content is free on the web he shouldn’t expect success in paid model on iPad.

iPad is not the only horse in town. There are 12-14 competitors. Does this mean publishers will be forced to develop different platforms for each tablet? Not necessarily, the good news is that Apple is setting high standards. iPad will only be the fraction of the audience. And it will not be a monopoly.

After the readers, publishers should spend a while to think what will advertisers be paying for? Again, they will pay for what is scarce:

• message richness
• context
• knowing the audience really well
• location
• intention
• fulfillment

Ads on iPad will be premium. Again, publishers should:

• be completely flexible,
• worry more about what they can do for their advertisers,
• start preparing their salesforce for yet another platform,
• start working on new digital commercial narratives.,
• team to develop new digital narratives – commercial and editorial – that must include sales and marketing people.

On iPad everyone is a competitor to the publishers, even their own clients. Take a look on iPhone application prepared by Kraft Foods. Don’t you think that kind of app should be developed by a magazine covering the topics of kitchen or food?

iPad is the world’s biggest distraction

Monica Bulger, the research assistant at Oxford Internet Institute spoke today during INMA’s Oxford Tablet Summit about the importance of the content, and an easiness to distract the reader.

Whenever somebody comes to the site, he is distracted and have always many other things to do. The key question for publishers will be how to keep the reader interested?

iPad of course is the new era, but certain things are not going to change. Among those are
the way we prefer to read. Those who read from left to right – will continue to do so. These who get distracted by flashy advertisemnts, will continue to do so.

Publishers must bare in mind the cognitive load rule. The content has to be meaningful. The story matters. The goal should be to make people return to the content. The way publishers organize their stories is most important to keep the reader.

The problem with reading is the distraction – when the reader gets to the last point of the read, he often does not remember where he started. It is so because of the information overload.
iPad is on one hand the world’s largest distraction – with all applications and availability to switch from one app to another, it makes harder for reader to focus.

A good example of a cognitive container is the printed newspaper.  When you read it on the bus or at home, you seldom have any distractions. Bearing that in mind, the key issue for publishers should be to prepare such application that will keep the reader off the distractions. Strong content in that case can combat the distraction (example: the infographics shown by Chiqui Esteban).

At the end of her speech, Monica Bulger quoted the US president: “With iPods and iPads and xboxes and playstations – none of which i know how to use – information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation” (Obama, May 2010)

If iPads are the savior of the newspapers, news will be the savior of the iPad – Bulger concluded

iPad is the new frontier

Diego Cenzano is a journalist, and a founder of  an IT company involved in custom-made software solutions to implement the first iPad applications for multimedia companies. During the INMA’s Oxford Tablet Summit, he talked about technology as a critical element in media business.

Technology has become a critical element in the media business. We are facing a new frontier. 15 years ago it was internet. Now these are smartphones and tablets.

Publishers need to avoid the mistakes we made many years ago with the web. First, they should look back at them, and understant that iPad strategy is:

1. not a shovelware only strategy (moving full content to the new platform)
2. no automatic publishing.
3. very poor data about the reader / user
4. lack of innovation in advertisement

Publishers need to promote the integration of journalists, graphics and technology profiles inside the newsrooms, to empower the possibilities of our everyday work. Preliminary preparation of all content templates and navigation logic into the iPad CMS will be necessary. 3 new employees in the newsroom may be required in the new workflow: newsfeeds technician, graphic technical developer, ipad editor. They should operate closely together.

Content must be prepared in language that is understandable to different devices.

Media applications are a building process for tablets. Editorial system simply has to be common for print and online. It should be communicated to the content and stylesheet repository.

Five clear needs to be considered by the newsmedia companies:
1. become application creators
2. stress flexibility (it workflow has to be flexible, able to creat applications for different platforms)
3. enhance the user experience
4. organize your IT staff to deal with the day-to-day business. They have to be inside the newsroom to help journalists everyday. It’s a new approach towards the newsroom workflow.
5. Expand the technicals staff’s horizons

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.

Tablet applications from the designer’s point of view

Saulo Ribas, creative director at Editora Globo in “Epoca Magazine” was also the guest of today’s Oxford Tablet Summit. He shared his ideas from the designer’s point of view. He is responsible for the success of “Epoca Magazine’s” iPad application, which was downloaded 2.000 times in 2 weeks.

“Epoca Magazine” wanted to be the first brazilian newspaper on iPad. They succeeded with this approach and gave 5 tips to the publishers:

1. It’s an application. Not a magazine, not a newspaper. Take advantage of the knowledge people already have with iPhone OS that is similar in ipad – they prefer interfaces, buttons, transitions, etc:

• good apps are non linear
• you can access content from anywhere in the app. There’s no dead ens in the app
• back/lists, searchbuttons are essential

Good app supports both otrientations: horizontal and vertical. They dont’ require user to learn, if u need instruction, it’s poorly designed. You have to be clear in the interface.  Very simple information hierarchy is needed – simplify and eliminate the unnecessary. Apps allow the user to leave and come back to where he stopped – try to produce the best reading experience.
2. The designers should think about templates not pages. They must now build templates useful to several articles. All the graphic styles they use in newspapers or in magazines must work on the tablets as well
when it looks great on iPad, it will look great on any other tablet. Remember that iPad is the testing ground also for the other tablets.
3. Personalize – the reader is now in control. Allow the reader to define the settings of the app easily. The more , the better. Personalize the layout, typography, etc. Give reader a new reading experience.
4. Technology is also content. ave programmers as part of the newsroom. Editorial team will have that way much more control over the final product.
5. Choose the right flow of the information inside the iPad app. Change the content not the menus. Ideal architecture of an app is connected, non-linear and dynamic. Remember, it is something totally different than the newspaper flow.