Advertisement
 
 
Principal, Byte Media Strategies

Byte Back

By John Parsons

About John

John Parsons is a publishing technology analyst, author and editor. He is the principal of Byte Media Strategies, a publishing business and technology consultancy, and the former Editorial Director of The Seybold Report.

 

Publishers' Dojo

Linda Ruth
Actually, Some Publishers Do Like Apps: An Answer to Jason Pontin
May 14, 2012

Who can resist the person brave enough to cry out that the emperor has no clothes? Once again Technology Review’s...



Profit from Publishing!

Thaddeus B. Kubis
How Well Do You Know Your Market—Really?
May 2, 2012

How well do you know your market? Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Why would I ask you about your market, a...



The Postal Pundit

Eddie Mayhew
Pointing Fingers With Your Head In The Sand
Apr 12, 2012

April is here and we now know that March madness was more than just basketball.

Part of...



B2B Beat

Andy Kowl
Mojo Still Trumps Metrics
Apr 3, 2012

It sometimes feels like we are living in a jargon jungle. Since the whole concept of a thing called "advertising...



The Digital Domain

Ron Matejko
Carr and Quittner on Flipboard: A Trusted Wingman for Publishers?
Mar 20, 2012

For those who skipped Monday morning's keynote at the Publishing Business Conference & Expo featuring an interview of Flipboard Editorial...



Pub Talk

Jim Sturdivant
The Next Steps For Digital Content
Feb 9, 2012

Over the past two weeks, my 9-year-old daughter has purchased (with her parents' consent) three songs from iTunes: Vanessa Carlton's...



The Digital Market

Thea Selby
Location, Location, Location: The Success of Apple Newsstand
Nov 2, 2011

My grandfather Robert Garretson was a marketer for Carling Black Label beer in the Midwest. While no stranger to the...



Everything Publishing

Lou Ann Sabatier
A New Way To Be a Player
Sep 19, 2011

If you want to increase affinity with your brand, grow traffic (up to 20x for some sites) and retention, create...



Media Vent

Bob Sacks
A Short Story About Editors
Aug 17, 2011

I will now somewhat ashamedly admit that when I was a young publishing executive at High Times, I sometimes took...



What Is “Interactive” Anyway? (Part 2)

2
 
In Part 1 of this blog, I lamented the lack of consensus on what constitutes effective interactivity for digital magazines. Since then, I had the opportunity to ask more questions during my Gilbane Boston panel session on Mobile App development "from the trenches." The panelists represented both business and consumer titles.

The real question, it turns out, is less about embedded multimedia than it is about personalization, relevance and immediacy of content. For magazines, interactivity has always been about connection with the story; digital media has merely made that connection more complex, raising new technical and economic challenges for publishers.

The Gilbane panelists each discussed the pros and cons of developing interactive content. They praised the new, tablet-friendly design tools from Adobe (Digital Publishing Suite), Zinio, WoodWing and others—recently augmented by the QuarkXPress 9 announcement. They also expressed concern over rising costs (designing for multiple screen layouts, video production, etc.) vs. the unknown circulation and advertising benefits on a new, untried platform. Beyond that, however, they each expressed the notion that embedded media alone was not the answer.

Geoff Shaw of The Sporting News discussed their recent tablet app, The Sporting News Daily. Video and photo gallery embedding are standard fare, although user-generated content is limited by NFL and other content policies. Social media tie-ins are also prevalent. (Commenting has had to be curtailed to avoid endless "Yankees suck! No, Red Sox suck!" exchanges.) Beyond that, however, what has proven more successful is the delivery of time-sensitive, magazine-quality content to readers. Readers want the depth of storytelling that magazines offer, but they also want immediate gratification. While RSS and Web feeds can provide the latest scores, Shaw feels that a digital magazine edition can provide such data in a more satisfying, engaging manner—quality as well as quantity.

The next stage, according to Shaw, is to customize content still further—according to individual user preferences for particular sports, teams or players. Interactivity at that level would mirror the Daily Me concept theorized years ago by the MIT Media Lab. Difficulties still abound, not the least of which are privacy concerns and the reluctance of readers to even create such profiles. Nevertheless, Shaw feels that the model holds promise for truly interactive magazines.

Automation and XML were cited as cornerstones of cost-effective interactivity. Shaw envisioned a data-to-template workflow that would be essential as more tablets with differing screen sizes are introduced. Another panelist described the use of a centralized XML repository of content, from which users could customize their own content, whether viewed on a device or even printed on demand. Needless to say, publishers will need to get creative with content licensing before this model can extend beyond a single title.

Paul Michelman of the Harvard Business Review summarized the interactivity dilemma nicely. While rich media and customization can certainly boost reader engagement, through "nonlinear storytelling," the idea of an enhanced magazine is too often constrained by arcane circulation rules and publishing norms—not to mention unproven revenue models. While social media tie-ins are intriguing, there are no guarantees that their use will create the same lasting engagement that good writing and design has done in the past. To make things worse, technology is outpacing consumers' ability to use it well—or predictably.

In short, true interactivity in a digital magazine is hard. However, as Michelman noted, we need to do it anyway.


Companies Mentioned:

Sections:

2

COMMENTS

Click here to leave a comment...
Comment *
Most Recent Comments:
Greg Miller - Posted on April 11, 2011
I was inadvertantly associating the idea of "interactive" with value-added content. I would never consider advertsing value-added or the ability to easily insert it as something a reader would even desire.
Mihai Paunescu - Posted on March 07, 2011
"They also expressed concern over rising costs (designing for multiple screen layouts, video production, etc.) vs. the unknown circulation and advertising benefits on a new, untried platform."
I'm not an expert either but considering multimedia and interactivity just as some more work to be done by the editors it is not the best idea. The main area where it make sense to use multimedia and interactivity is advertising. This is not something that will complicate the publisher's life too much. He just receives a clip from the client and insert it. That clip was already produced for TV distribution and it is just complemented with a form where the reader can ask for additional info or some specific features for exploring the product/service features. That's not at all "unproven revenue model".
If you consider user comments as interactivity possible issues can be solved by filtering them. It is a proven method to deal with bad language and other unwanted interventions.

Click here to view archived comments...
Archived Comments:
Greg Miller - Posted on April 11, 2011
I was inadvertantly associating the idea of "interactive" with value-added content. I would never consider advertsing value-added or the ability to easily insert it as something a reader would even desire.
Mihai Paunescu - Posted on March 07, 2011
"They also expressed concern over rising costs (designing for multiple screen layouts, video production, etc.) vs. the unknown circulation and advertising benefits on a new, untried platform."
I'm not an expert either but considering multimedia and interactivity just as some more work to be done by the editors it is not the best idea. The main area where it make sense to use multimedia and interactivity is advertising. This is not something that will complicate the publisher's life too much. He just receives a clip from the client and insert it. That clip was already produced for TV distribution and it is just complemented with a form where the reader can ask for additional info or some specific features for exploring the product/service features. That's not at all "unproven revenue model".
If you consider user comments as interactivity possible issues can be solved by filtering them. It is a proven method to deal with bad language and other unwanted interventions.