News on the iPad: Expectedly, Underwhelming, with the Exception of.....
Mathew Ingram’s first take, over at Giga Om, on news products sums it up well: underwhelming. That’s no surprise, but still worth a check-in on the historic first day of the live iPad. Let’s try two explanations for the underwhelming nature of those first products:
- Gimme a Break!: Those select publishers who were given iPads to develop products had severe constraints. A half dozen or so iPads, to be strictly controlled by seat (though there were a lot of semi-violations of the Apple rules, as non-seatholders peered over shoulders, and peaked under the brown paper used to conceal development). A month or so to develop a first version of the product. In this explanation, of course, the products seem too limited, too re-purposed at launch. After all, when W3XK went on the air in 1928, they called it “radiovision.”
- Oh No, They’ve Done it Again!: Fifteen years into news on the web, they’ve done it again: they just keep re-purposing print, with same conventions and the same mindsets. They think print and print and print; the metaphor just moves from platform (desktop) to platform (laptop) to platform (smartphone) to platform (iPad). In this alternative, news publishers just don’t get and never will.
I’ve talked to many of the players who have put first-round products out there, and I’d have to say it’s a split decision between the two explanations. It’s way too early to castigate legacy print players, but as the year wears on, we’re see the acid tests of those who embrace the new platform for what it does best and those who don’t. Most are moving actively on phase 2 development — as they are able to get the iPad product thinking integrated into general workflow, rather than limited to a cloistered few. As that happens, we’ll see how much true innovation happens and which metaphors news publishers borrow from each other — and from other apps.
One early review from a trusted source raises some good questions. He’s blown away by the Wall Street Journal, free for a limited time on the iPad, before going to a $17.29 monthly price point for non-print subscribers. “There’s no reason for me to get the print paper anymore. I can read the Journal — just like this newspaper — over a sandwich at lunch.” Among the rave features: video (from the WSJ Digital Network, a smart play to combine video assets from its major brands of WSJ, Barrons, Marketwatch and AllThingsD) that reveals itself from “photo” positions in the newspaper-like pages, section metaphors that mimic print and interactive ads that pop up every third page flick. The ad intrusiveness seems to borrow a metaphor from the video pre-rolls; you know, don’t bother the reader every time they take in a new unit of content, just every once in a while.
The Journal’s path may combine the best of two worlds. One world is the paper, its metaphor of reading intact, which still makes more sense to many people than its online version; that’s the same struggle many newspapers have had — coming up with an intuitive web metaphor that worked. Second, the embrace of what the iPad advances in some revolutionarily intuitive ways: video, touch and social sharing.
There are two things the Journal and all newspapers have to be concerned with, given the iPad: Failure and success. Failure is failure: just another platform that fails to create large new digital revenue streams. Success: If my friend is right, and he doesn’t need the WSJ paper anymore, how many readers will flee the print version — which still produces 80%+ revenue at all newspaper companies — for the iPad version? Success means managing, or attempting to manage, that transition right. Managing that transition is behind WSJ’s evolving pricing, which induces a headache if we try to figure it out today. Check out Chris Smith’s post, getting into iPad-only pricing, print+online+iPad pricing and online+iPad pricing. Clearly, the Journal is trying to anticipate success here — that’s clearly what’s behind what some have derided as a high iPad-only $17.29 monthly sub fee.
Of course, that could be a good problem to have. Tablets, with good subscription price points, potentially lucrative ad rates and low (compared to print) costs of production and distribution, may be the building block of the digital-first news business.