The definition of the book itself is up for grabs. We don’t know understand at the moment what the consumer is prepared to pay for […] We will only find answers to these questions by trial and error.
– John Makinson
Now we begin to see who in the publishing industry can be creative. The iPad is an opportunity to think of publishing from the bottom up. New authors, new stories, new experiences. It is an exciting time for publishing; more exciting than we have seen in quite some time.
I posted a video about how Sports Illustrated was imagining the use of the iPad platform and it was pretty interesting considering that it really addressed content. It wasn’t eye-candy.
This video is being shared all over the place as the next coming. Not all that imaginative. These are all pretty simplistic ways of adding interactivity once you have a touch screen. So, will you care after the first three times you use it? Will you want to interact with content this way on a regular basis?
How will a reader be able to avoid the advertising is the question that comes to mind. Will advertisers want to invest the resources needed to make advertising for these kind of publications? Advertisers a consistent model to build ads. For pricing and production. Seems like a big barrier.
With each publication designing it’s own interactivity where is the common interface?
Wired has thought about lots of spinning and interactivity but nothing that seems to enhance the CONTENT/CONTEXT experience.
In fact even they state that they are hoping that people will pay for it. The expectation on the web is FREE. Ads, but free. People do not want to pay for delivery and content. People don’t want the cable model anymore.
Just not convinced that this particular economic model is sustainable.
Maybe they should go have a talk with Steve Jobs. I hear he has a few ideas how publications can work.
It doesn’t take much imagination to get the difference having a good tablet device will make to media providers/publishers. It actually may awaken the publishing industry to the requirement to provide context and new meaning to the stories they publish. We can google anything we want to on the web, but it is raw data. Context is what is needed and this new portable platform may be just the place for publishers to really get interactive media religion.
Here’s a video to stimulate your imagination.
This collaboration between The Wonderfactory and Time, Inc. is an excellent example of how tablets will enable the creation of innovative, addictive experiences by publishers, media companies, and advertisers.