iPad

The iPad is finally here. Now what? The new tablet has garnered endless amounts of praise, along with a fair amount of trepidation among media companies. What do publishing professionals need to know about this potentially game-changing device and the business models that will spring up around it? We offer some perspective to help guide your next strategy session.

iPad frequently asked questions (FAQ) for media companies
With over 3 million sold to date, the iPad is a genuine sales success. Publisher hopes that the iPad will save the publishing industry will soon give way, however, to the harsh realities of trying to build a sustainable revenue stream around the iPad and other e-reader devices. Here’s a list of questions (with answers) to help magazine and newspaper professionals sort through the clutter.

iPad roundup: Who’s got game?
A collection of six videos that showcase publishers’ willingness to reinvent their brand for the iPad instead of shoveling a digital version of the print product into iTunes.

How to get Flash video on the Apple iPad
Here’s a roundup of some companies that are circumventing Apple’s no-Flash philosophy using HTML5

How to price your iPad edition
As the April 3 release of the iPad looms, publishers are scrambling to find the right price points for their iPad apps and digital editions. Here are some early baselines.

Will the iPad “revolution” leave behind small publishers?
To avoid being left in the iPad dust, small publishers should band together to share development resources, much like the AP was born out of newspapers sharing copy among one another.

The real iPad lesson has nothing to do with technology
While the issue of the iPad’s impact on the future of media has set people all atwitter, the important thing here isn’t the device, it’s the marketing and what you can learn from it.

How media can profit from new iPad
Publishers should be single-mindedly focused on finding ways to charge for all the exciting new content, services and advertising opportunities that will be enabled by the iPad and the imitators that follow.
Source: Reflections of a Newsosaur

The iPad business model for news: Strategies publishers must embrace
If publishers adopt their usual defensive stance and take a slow approach, they’ll miss the iPad boat.
Source: Nieman Lab

Publishers see iPad as path to sales increase …
Biblical references have been rife as media executives await the Easter Saturday launch of a device dubbed “the Jesus tablet” by the New York Times. But it may take months to know whether the iPad offers publishers a path to financial salvation.
Source: Financial Times

... but fear the bite of Apple’s revenue model
The question haunting publishers preparing to enter the iPad era is whether they will suffer the same fate as the music industry, which was hit by Apple’s 2003 deal to unbundle the album format by offering downloads of individual songs via iTunes.
Source: Financial Times

How Apple is dogfighting to control your news
Apple’s iPad could make it the king of old media, arbiter of taste and technology alike. So magazines and newspapers have begun a series of countermoves that could turn the quietest dogfight in media into the most vicious.
Source: Gawker

For the media biz, iPad 2010 = CDROM 1994
The magazine industry’s excitement over the iPad takes the author back to the early ’90s — when media companies saw their future on a shiny aluminum disc.
Source: Wordyard

iPad’s killer app: It looks a bit like a magazine
For all the bluster about iPad “saving media”, media companies’ real iPad salvation is this: they can present their editions in much the same old dead-tree format they did before that pesky HTML came along.
Source: paidContent

Reimagining the magazine cover for the iPad
What should a magazine cover look like on the iPad? After all, the cover is still the gateway to the magazine.
Source: TechCrunch

iPad anti-frenzy revised
It was three years ago now when consumers were whipping themselves into a frenzy over the iPhone. Times have certainly changed. With the iPad device only days away from release, the publishers are the frenzied ones and the consumers are apparently lukewarm.
Source: minOnline

Google’s chief economist: The iPad is not going to save newspapers
Digital distribution will be a boon to newspaper publishers if they can also radically redefine their product and means of reaching consumers.
Source: Business Insider