How Would Apple Change Publishing? Here’s One Theory
12:20 pm, November 13th, 2009, Giles Turnbull
This presentation is the work of Freek Bijl, a Dutch internet strategist, and in it he makes a lot of very interesting points.
His starting point is this: Apple has already changed the music industry and the cellphone industry. How might it change publishing, particularly newspapers and magazines?
The answer lies in a three-fold triangle of needs: distribution (of content), a business model (whereby publishers can charge for content), and usability (so that readers can read things without fuss). All these can be fixed if Apple applies the success of the iPhone and the App Store to a tablet-like device and a new publishing store.
Bijl’s argument is persuasive and makes a lot of sense. My only concern is that Apple likes to surprise people; perhaps its ideas for changing publishing might be even more radical than he predicts.
What do you think of Bijl’s argument? Would you buy your news and magazine content via a “news store” on your iPhone or Apple tablet? And would you be prepared to pay the same, or less, or more than you presently pay for a printed newspaper?
Posted by Giles Turnbull in Apple, News, Opinions | Comment on this article
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This seems pretty good, but I have one question….What about the “cloud”-Mobile Me.
As I understand, doesn’t “mobile me” cost for it’s service. I may be wrong, but I’m new to Mac. When I was first getting started, I clicked on the MobileMe icon, and found that it requires a subscription for use, which I’m not paying for when I can get my mail for free through free servers elsewhere. So, if I don’t have MobileMe (the cloud), will I still have access to the content on my MBP???
Cody, on November 13th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
@Cody. yes Mobile Me costs. which is not mentioned in the slides. and you get more than syncing out of it but that’s for another day.
as for the slides. they really aren’t very good. they make some serious leaps including treating the MacTablet like it is a done and announced deal.
Also, Hulu and the like has put us in a position where folks want either free with Ads (Hulu) or they pay and no dang ads (itunes store and netflix streaming). Magazines and such would be smart to go these ways also. A paid subscription might actually get them enough stable money that the ad money picks up the slack instead of trying to save a sinking ship with just that thin rope
Also for all this ebook stuff to be appealling, non fiction publishers really need to step up and embrace the game. Works on a screen or even an ‘audiobook’ mode is great for a novel. but if you are reading a cookbook, you would stand out by giving some video as well. of the whole recipe or even just of techniques used that someone might not know. Textbook companies could add in places to annotate, add notes, highlight items. just like you can with a real textbook. lord knows that would make paying $150 for a back breaker you can’t return at the end of the year cause it’s being revised a little less painful.
and so on.
as for the rumored tablet. I’m probably in a minority because I hope that it is being modeled after the Touch and not after the Macbook. Give me a larger touch that would be a netbook, ebook reader, ipod, video player and app machine (allowing folks to offer a Tablet version of their apps perhaps even with expedited reviews for those apps already in the store for the iphone/touch) with an unlocked 3g for data + “N” wifi and USB to connect to a printer if I needed to dash out a copy of an email or a map to give someone and I’m in heaven.
Charli, on November 13th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I would definitely like a news store, and would be willing to pay for content in much the same way as we do at the app store.
With the use of a Tablet, the need for newspapers and magazines would go away. Its just whether Apple can 1. build it (we know they can), and 2. get all the publishers on board.
It aint going to happen overnight, but its an idea which i think apple should definitely look into. (im sure they have already).
Andrew Macdonald, on November 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
With a MacBook Pro and iPhone, I already don’t read paper. I would like to have expanded text content available but pricing needs to follow the pattern of the reduced cost made possible by the extreme disintermediation of the App Store. $30.00 games now cost $2.00.
I’m not impressed with Amazon’s prices. They are bragging about $10 for a book when their costs of digital distribution are much less than 5% of what they were in the paper distribution model. A book should cost $2.00 with 70% of that going to the author and 30% to iTunes. I will not subsidize an obsolete paper model.
Nothing short of that will revolutionize the scene and impress me.
A “tablet” is not needed for this to happen. If there is to be a new hardware paradigm it will be “headphones for the eyes” i.e. perfectly flat AMOLED display(s) with flat diffractive lens built into attractive conventional looking glasses affording style, privacy, hands-free portability, low power, desktop class pixel real-estate and no contrast wash out. These are exactly the benefits of earbuds in the audio domain that need to migrate in the same way to the visual domain through proximity to the sense organ. We no longer tolerate mono sound because we have two ears. Likewise we should insist on stereo-optical because we have two eyes.
To me, each point made here is obvious and in time will prove incontestable.
batjam, on November 13th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Yes, I would definitely go for this. Two examples of why:
1) My regular daily newspaper costs too much these days and I detest the wastefulness of the physical product. A lower e-price would keep me on board as a subscriber.
2) My favourite weekly magazine comes from overseas but I dropped my subscription after 30 years because of the cost and loss of topicality due to delivery time. The online subscription version is a lousy experience in visual and reading terms. A lower e-price for a proper virtual magazine would get me back on board as a subscriber.
It would be smart for Apple not to try to do too much with a tablet device, or at least offer a range of models tailored to user preferences. In my case, I am interested in reading books and periodicals on the go but not in gaming or watching video, so I would prefer a lighter/smaller, less expensive, and less enabled version of such a device.
Nice thinking by the Dutch firm, by the way. Now I can see why I might want a tablet and not feel like there would be too much overlap with the MacBook Pro I use for my work as a marketing consultant and designer.
Peter Tabmow, on November 13th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
If you look at what News Corpn actually made money on – Cable – presumably aren’t they pretty rodgered if Apple can sort out content? There’s a slow movement towards it (HD content slowly being added, Genius being applied to not just music, but video and TV content. Apple’s likely to sort out the book market, which is a major chunk of its apps.
Tom, on November 13th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I am on board with Charli and batjam (agree with “headphones for the eyes” eventually, though I think tablet will happen first).
Couple of additional thoughts – I don’t see Apple splitting the ad dollars with publishers as ad-supported model is contrary to Apple’s way of doing business. I think the content will be free or paid/ subscription based. If publishers will be allowed to embed videos, and if there are pre-roll ads attached to these videos, I expect Apple to have nothing to do with ads and TOS and privacy policy to clearly state that (similar to iTunes podcasts, free apps).
Another — and big piece — is analytics. For any ad-supported format to work, publishers need to report impressions, views and CTRs because advertisers and agencies will be asking for it. This requires an analytics platform and I just do not see it on Apple’s agenda near-term. Subscription model is a clear play for them.
Publisher giving the content away for free will have to be inventive how to get their ROI.
mj, on November 13th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
My answer is no!. There is a difference between music and published content. I do not like mp3 and did not download any of it due to bad quality of sound. Itunes file format is superior, and sound is better than you can get on regular cd. I do download from Itunes.
Publishing is different. Apple cannot make bad writting more attractive. The problem that newspapers having is that they are irrelevant to news cycle, and whenever they get to covering the story, it is so permeated with political correctness that nobody cares to read it for free, much less pay for it. There is nothing that Apple can do about that!
ishogun, on November 13th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
face it, newspapers are dying. they are not sacrosanct, if the BBC web and TV outside the UK carries a huge amount of advertising (Lord Reith is rolling in his grave), anything can happen.
compact disc is encoded at a much higher bit rate than mp3/itunes and is superior.
you will never beat the convenience of a magazine for weeklymonthly reading.
it will be interesting to see if Mr Jobs can pull another rabbit out of the hat, only time will tell.
ged, on November 14th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Interesting presentation, but Freek seems to miss a few dimensions.
The compare with Music being distributed to several devices is very true, but most important reason why this is possible is because the music does not contain the visual aspects, where published content (and video content) are very depending on these visual aspects. It is for this same reason that the applications example suggest a distribution model to different devices, but as only the iPhone (and iPod Touch with the same visual presentation) are targeted via the app store.
As I am publishing myself, I have experienced the problems with different devices. The assumption that only the content is important has proven to be incorrect. The layout makes a huge difference in the quality perception of the publication. Different devices with different characteristics all attract their own type of content, where there is not a single content type that can cover the characteristics of all devices.
A second dimension missed is the location of consumption. With just the example of the airlines requirement that ALL electronic devices are turned off during take-off an landing I will not further elaborate on this dimension.
The distribution dimension, mentioned in the presentation, indeed captures the difference between the per publication vs. subscription model. A model applicable to most news papers and magazines. However, supporting the 24 hour economy, the model requires a lot of extensions, where I am not sure that electronics will be friendly enough to support the current distribution model. Element of the distribution model, not covered, are: Free newspaper/magazines to be picked up at stations, hotels, airports etc, that allow the user to experience something different just because it is available. This model is especially important for frequent travelers. Another import function with published media distribution is the showcase. How often do you look at magazines in a bookshop, while looking for what you know, browsing through what you don’t know.
The last dimension that I would like to mention is the dimension of sharing the publication, or parts of the publication. Following the principle of the Xerox, many websites already show a “Send to a friend” e-mail link. The usage of a highlighter to mark the sections that the reader can use in printed publications however seems to be failing. On the level of books/magazines, and to a lesser extend newspapers, the publisher is already sure that the publication that is shared has been payed for. In addition, the hurdles to be taken before sharing are to a level that sharing will be to a level of a few friends, rather than to the whole world.
Electronic available content can either be protected (DRM) to not be shared at all, or not protected and therewith free for sharing with the world, with hardly any hurdles.
Even Steve Jobs (Apple) will need to come up with some very creative inventions to overcome the short comings of electronics to address these dimensions.
I would personally not be surprised if Apple will try to embed publications in the business and distribution model of iTunes, the I would not expect a large scale market adoption of this model for many years due to the dimensions mentioned above. Surely the “geeks” (whatever that may mean these days) will help Apple push the model. But the large audience will need to see the concept proven to a much further extend than the music distribution. To quote a friend I recently discussed this model with: “I am reading multiple books simultaneously, and they are placed in different locations in the house. I cannot imagine myself looking for an e-reader before I visit the toilet, just because I am reading one of these books every time I visit the toilet.”
Let’s see what the future will bring, but don’t expect the paper to disappear any day soon. (We have never been using as much paper as since we introduced the paperless office)
Jafo, on November 14th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Hi, I am interested in the field and came here via a google alert I have. My company helps mid tier publishers extend their content to smartphones via a branded application.
One concern I have is that subscriptions typically make only 20% of the revenue of a publication. To go for only a subscription only model will be asking a paper to give up 80% of its profits.
Also if this tablet has a browser, the UI of the sold publication had better be really good so i don;t think of going to its website.
Wenhan, on November 15th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
@AndrewMacDonald apparently the publishers are getting on board because I received an invite to a media preso where the publishers are making a “big announcement”. Takes place in Feb and as I hear it the Apple announcement is in late Jan. Ya think?
Ruth Ayres, on January 6th, 2010 at 6:47 am