Why periodicals don’t belong in the iPad iBook store
I don’t believe magazines/periodicals belong in the new iBook store for the iPad. This store uses the ePub format, which is what the Kindle uses as well, yet periodicals subscriptions on the Amazon reader haven’t really kicked off mainly because of the lack of graphics.
Also, ePub is not easy to update, unlike a website. If news breaks, how will the book-like format be updated? Comments, ratings, etc aren’t available either. All-in-all, not a very convenient solution, and not far from the static print versions.
Now, if you make an app, like the NYT (which is basically a ported version of the Times Reader), and offer it for download, you can update the stories any time, get push notifications, richer multimedia, etc. We also have to keep in mind the vast majority of magazines have websites which are updated daily, despite monthly/weekly print editions.
The only problem (for publishers) is monetizing these apps. The NYT app is free on the iPhone (I understand it will sync with the iPad one) and serves ads. Others, like the Guardian, are charging for it, but don’t serve ads.
But the resemblance between the NYT iPad app and the Times Reader desktop software leads me into thinking that NYT will try to charge for access to sections of the iPad app, like it does in Times Reader (front page stories are free). They already said they are planning another walled garden.
Nevertheless, I believe the App Store, paired with the iPad, offers more possibilities to periodicals publishers than the iBook store does.
Note — this comment is republished and adapted from my response to Will the iPad Save Media? Not Just Yet
Forgetting about the iPad’s web browser? I do not see anything wrong with a periodical providing a solid website tailored to the device accessing it, there will be eventually many tablets, and already there are many smartphones, making apps for every single platform would cost more that it is worth.
Is old media is really so scared of Google that they want to abandon the web totally at whatever costs and try to hide content in one hundred places ?
I don’t think they want to abandon the Web, and especially not Google, which sends them millions of visitors daily. Impending paywalls and other subscription mechanisms are probably a reaction to their dwindling profits, which they try to bring up through separate (more promising ventures) such as mobile apps that serve the same content (incidentally very expensive to produce).
For online paywalls, the genie was out of the lamp for too long to go back, but for mobile apps, perhaps the moment is now.