TAKEAWAY: Bonnier is the publishing innovator of the year for the diversity of its media offerings—-and banking on the tablet as it projects a total of 20 titles with iPad apps by year’s end.
Bonnier and iPad apps
Popular Science: Bonnier’s first mag on the iPad
Roadtrip is Bonnier’s made-for-the-tablet publication. App combines two subject areas—cars and travel—into one app.
We all remember the excitement when Popular Science magazine appeared with its iPad app edition. It had all those bells, whistles and, of course, pop ups that were the surprise that made users of that first iPad1 jump in their seats with excitement while saying: Wow, this is what the tablet is all about.
Then, of course, we saw , and continue to see a barrage of magazine apps that pop up on the cover and sort of fizzle once you start navigating. The explosive piñata is the cover, and, after that it is a party without champagne or mojitos.
So it is interesting to see that the Bonnier group, which publishes Popular Science, has been chosen as the 2011 Publishing Innovator of the Year. Well deserved. According to those who gave Bonnier the award:
Bonnier Corp. has been selected the disappointment with the success of their iPad mag apps, here is Bonnier announcing that the Swedish media company will bring to more than 20 the number of tablet launches by the end of the year.
For Conde Naste announced they are slowing a bit on their iPad editions, acknowledging that conditions aren’t quite right yet to deliver the ideal app editions at the kind of scale that advertisers want. Of course, it does not mean that they will not continue to develop iPad editions, but they will put the publications through a closer scrutiny before they create an iPad edition for it. As we know, Conde Naste, like Bonnier, has been an iPad editioning pioneer with such apps as Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour. Since then, Golf Digest, Self and Allure have followed.
But there is a chance Conde Naste is going to teach other app publishers a lesson, by offering a very special value for its app subscriptions. Only yesterday, the company announced it is close to a deal to begin selling its magazine issues on the iPad for $2 each and will offer yearly subscriptions for $20,
To me, here is the key: this is a new platform, and we know that users are willing to pay for that first edition to see how it works, then there is a sharp drop in the number of continue to buy that magazine after that first impulse and curiousity. With the right prices, I feel that the mag app subscriptions will do better. In fact, if media companies take a page from Apple itself, they will realize that the low price is a key to success.
Perhaps part of being an innovator at this early stage in the development of iPad apps is NOT just in the creation of the app itself, but how one markets it. For a medium in its infancy, a combination of great storytelling, a variety of pop up moments and reasonable pricing are the key.
Wired magazine iPad app: bells and whistles, a pop up a minute: Conde NasteTheMarioBlog post #768
