Is the iPad the Next Big Thing for Magazines?
By Andy Jackson, Executive Director, January 28 2010
It’s way too early (as I write, less that 24 hours after its announcement) to know what impact Apple’s iPad will have on magazines, but my sense is that it will be big. It looks like the closest thing yet to a non-paper medium that can offer something like the graphical experience of a glossy paper magazine. Combine that with the almost addictive multi-touch navigation that iPhone users know so well and…
Here’s what The Economist had to say in their January 30, 2010 “leader” (editorial): “Charging for content, which has proved difficult on the Web, my get easier. Already people are prepared to pay to receive newspapers and magazines (including The Economist) on the Kindle. The iPad, with its colour screen and integration with Apple’s online stores, could make downloading books, newspapers and magazines as easy and popular as downloading music. Most important, it will allow for advertising…. In theory, a [magazine] could ask readers to sign up for a two year electronic subscription and subsidise the cost of a tablet [computer].”
For publishers, two major pieces remain to be sorted out; subscription mechanisms (fulfillment bureaus take note), and advertiser metrics. But neither is impossible to solve.
This is clearly something we publishers should be watching very closely.
I doubt that the iPAD will have that much of an impact on regional magazines. The iPAD appears to be a large-print iTouch. How are you going to pass along an iPAD magazine? You cannot pass along a Kindle book, and I expect the same control will be sought in “electronic delivery” of magazines.
I don’t think making computers portable (remember we’ve had laptops for years, many of which have a larger screen and more possibilities than the iPAD) have had virtually no impact on the marketability of magazines through an electronic method.
If publishers would invest as much time and effort into their print product that they are throwing at the “electronic age,” they’d likely have a much more viable product to offer subscribers, making their magazines “must haves” instead of something that comes in the mail. Newspapers are becoming more irrelevant due to their content, not due to them being printed on paper.
At my publication, we’re seeing more and more new subscriptions coming in at a two-year rate, which says a lot about our audience and their expectation of the coming E-paper.
Bo Sacks may find himself speaking less and less about E-paper and more and more about content in the years ahead.
—Matt Holliday, Pennsylvania Magazine
By mholliday on Mar 03, 2010