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
Actually, Some Publishers Do Like Apps: An Answer to Jason Pontin
May 14, 2012Who can resist the person brave enough to cry out that the emperor has no clothes? Once again Technology Review’s...
Profit from Publishing!
How Well Do You Know Your Market—Really?
May 2, 2012How well do you know your market? Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Why would I ask you about your market, a...
The Postal Pundit
Pointing Fingers With Your Head In The Sand
Apr 12, 2012April is here and we now know that March madness was more than just basketball.
Part of...
B2B Beat
Mojo Still Trumps Metrics
Apr 3, 2012It sometimes feels like we are living in a jargon jungle. Since the whole concept of a thing called "advertising...
The Digital Domain
Carr and Quittner on Flipboard: A Trusted Wingman for Publishers?
Mar 20, 2012For those who skipped Monday morning's keynote at the Publishing Business Conference & Expo featuring an interview of Flipboard Editorial...
Pub Talk
The Next Steps For Digital Content
Feb 9, 2012Over 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
Location, Location, Location: The Success of Apple Newsstand
Nov 2, 2011My grandfather Robert Garretson was a marketer for Carling Black Label beer in the Midwest. While no stranger to the...
Everything Publishing
A New Way To Be a Player
Sep 19, 2011If you want to increase affinity with your brand, grow traffic (up to 20x for some sites) and retention, create...
Media Vent
A Short Story About Editors
Aug 17, 2011I will now somewhat ashamedly admit that when I was a young publishing executive at High Times, I sometimes took...
The App’s The Thing
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As the iPad frenzy continues, magazine publishers are once again headed for the gold fields of digital editions (or DEs). Last week, Time launched a splashy — and expensive — iPad edition, and Zinio’s reader has become the #1 free app for the iPad, to name only two examples. Apple has left itself vulnerable to an Android/Flash counterattack, but the DE 2.0 bubble has clearly begun. Not everyone will survive.
Tablet-based digital editions — on the iPad or elsewhere — are beginning to explore truly useful interactivity. First generation DEs were often little more than digital facsimile flipbooks, the better ones adding search, article sharing and the insertion of URLs. All that has changed. Time’s new iPad wonder was created with newly announced WoodWing technology — allowing InDesign users to easily add photo galleries, videos, live data feeds and other non-print elements while creating the print version. The final product includes flexible article reading views and other nice touches for multi-media viewing. Early audience feedback has been positive, although the $4.99-per-issue price has not gone over well.
The early bumps will be worked out, including the chaos of multiple vendors creating multiple user interfaces, and visibility limitations for display ads. Even Apple has generously offered to help on the in-app mobile advertising front. These are evolutionary changes, however. The real DE revolution — the issue that will make or break a magazine’s efforts — is the use of interactive, truly personalized apps within the greater app that is the magazine’s digital edition.
WoodWing has anticipated this, allowing designers to insert interactive “widgets” in each issue. Other DE developers are moving in this direction. More than slideshows and video clips, these embedded apps represent publishers’ and advertisers’ best hope for creating real engagement — and a reason to bet on the success of digital editions on any platform.
Personalization is the key to a successful embedded app, and to the digital edition that features it. Giving the subscriber reasons to keep using the app — whether or not they buy anything today — will make it a thing of value, a compelling motivation to prefer the DE over the printed version. The possibilities are endless, from collections of one’s favorite recipes to business surveys to vacation itineraries, and so forth. Creating and saving actionable information, based on individual needs and requests, will be at the heart of successful apps within magazine DEs.
Embedding video or games in a digital edition might seem like a good idea, but there are plenty of media and entertainment companies that do such things better than most magazine publishers. Engaging, personalized apps, on the other hand, are new to almost everyone. They can also leverage the inherent storytelling and data gathering strengths of any good magazine and its advertisers. Let the creativity begin!
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