Updated Friday, Jan. 29, 09:30EST
TAKEAWAY: A quick benefit of Apple’s iPad for our industry: it allows to dream of the possibilities. A good thing.
Forty eight hours after Apple introduced the iPad to an expectant world, a lot of the discussion centers around its name (I personally like it), and, for publishers worldwide, how the new device will transform their business——and, more importantly, their fortunes.
Personally, I have participated in several interviews, including one with Monocle Radio’s Tyler Brulé, to air Sunday (www.monocle.com). In each case, the topic centers around the question: is the iPad the panacea the publishing industry has been waiting for?
I think so. I believe the iPad will be able to, as some call it, “tabletize” the newspaper reading experience. It will depend on how well those apps can capture the eseence of reading a newspaper, or how well it can provoke the promiscuous scanner to let his fingers run over that irrisistible headline and click to read a certain piece—-for which he must pay.
Ironically, the more I looked at the iPad demo videos yesterday—-as the overall effect of this attractive gadget began to sink in—-the more I turned back to iTunes, to examine my own behavior as I surf through it in search of music that appeals to me. Yes, iTunes knows me and everytime I open my iTunes’ and go to iTunes’ Store I get a folder that says “Genius Just for You”, where I find what the iTunes guys have placed some music I am likely to buy, based on my past purchases here. Mostly, it is a selection of jazz goodies. Today, it tries to sell me Steve Tyrell’s The Songs of Sinatra, for example.
Likewise, the iPad may drag us into material that it knows we like and would probably buy into.
Which brings me to a thought about how we in newspapers used to spend hours debating the key differences in the design of a front page aimed at street sales (big headlines, big photos), as opposed to the front page that went to subscribers who had already paid for their newspaper ahead of publication, in which case the size of a headline would have little impact on sales. I don’t think anyone debates this anymore. Not many newspapers have exclusive street sales editions.
The research of the time showed that many people—-including those who did not subscribe to newspapers and bought an occasional copy in the street——already knew which newspaper they wanted before they reached a series of newspaper boxes lined up next to each other. Indeed, media consumption has always tended to be rather routine for most people, with impulse buying playing a minor role (except for days when news is monumentally dramatic and different, of course).
A ‘street sales app”?
Based on this, I can imagine that the iPad could lure the undecided (or reluctant) newspaper reader by offering a menu of headlines from various sections of a newspaper—-or from various newspapers, of course, and make it so interesting, that I may click to read that story, and pay for that one-time user experience.
The “street sales app” could probably allow for a strategy to attract the non newspaper reader who was using the iPad to download a book, or get directions.
Suddenly, here are five headlines written in such a way that I must change course, abandon my initial intentions and perform a trio of activities that would make publishers reading this smile: click, pay and read.
Nothing new about seduction, just that the iPad offers a high tech and more instantaneously gratifying way to accomplish it.
Fantasy?
Not really. This is nothing short of very possible. Not so difficult to do, and, alas, in terms of strategy, it has little new to add: must have good content, must write a good headline, must seduce me with it to the point where I must read that story, now. Credit card is out. Reading starts.
Part of what is exciting about the iPad is that it allows us to dissect our traditional journalism strategies and seek new applications for it.
In a world where there is sometimes little time for meditation about what we do, one thing I already like about the iPad is this: it allows us to dream of the possibilities.
Usually, that is how good things are born.
Of related interest:
What the iPad Could Mean for the News Business
http://seekingalpha.com/article/184841-what-the-ipad-could-mean-for-the-news-business
– So it’s called the iPad: Five thoughts on how it will (and won’t) change the game for news organizations
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/01/so-its-called-the-ipad-five-thoughts-on-how-it-will-and-wont-change-the-game-for-news-organizations/
– Taking A Deeper Look At Media’s Appetite For The iPad
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-taking-a-deeper-look-at-medias-appetite-for-the-ipad/
– Watching Kindle, iPad and e-Readers? Openness is Key
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=176810
– Amazon’s ‘Millions’ of Kindles Are Drop In $9.5 Billion Sales Bucket; App Will Be On iPad
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-amazons-millions-of-kindles-are-drop-in-9.5-billion-sales-bucket/
Apple’s iPad a Print Savior? Three Reasons Why It’s Not Even Close
http://industry.bnet.com/media/10006136/apples-ipad-a-print-savior-three-reasons-why-its-not-even-close/
Apple iPad and iBookstore: Is this the publishing industry’s savior?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/01/apple-ipad-newspapers-magazines.html