Så blev det Wireds tur til at blive sociale på iPad. I maj-nummeret, der lige er kommet på gaden – og som forøvrigt er gratis, sponseret af Adobe (Tak, Adobe) – kan du nu tweete, maile og dele artikler på facebook.
Ja, ikke fra alle artikler altså. Faktisk kun fra 4-5 af dem. Ikke storstilet.
Og hvis du gerne vil vide hvad andre tweeter om en artikel og hvad de skriver om den på Facebook, må du også ud og lede andre steder. Det er ikke noget du får noget at vide om inde i Wired selv. Det er synd, for det er ellers en af de helt store fordele ved at gøre indholdet socialt: at der kommer en ny dynamik til læseroplevelsen.
Der er ikke meget spræl over den lille “Share-bjælke” i bunden af artiklen her.
Her er Wired langt bagud i forhold til f.eks. The Daily, hvor du på alle artikler kan læse andre læseres kommentarer og se hvad de skriver om den på Facebook og Twitter – og selvfølgelige selv bidrage og dele også.
Denne ikke særligt imponerende sociale start er da også kun Wireds første skridt ud i deling. Det er ihvertfald hvad Chris Anderson, Wireds chefredaktør, har fortalt mig når jeg har spurgt. Men noget tyder på, at der er flere ben i det for Wired end først antaget.
For en måned siden, da der heller ikke var noget i marts-nummeret mailede han: ”We’ll have simple social media sharing next month (altså Maj-nummeret, altså, min tilføjelse), but the proper surfacing of social media conversations in-app is a non-trivial technology and will take a while to get right”
Wired har ellers alle muligheder for at gøre det godt – og intet at tabe! For de har i forvejen i al væsentlighed hele magasinet liggende gratis på på nettet også. Så det er sådan set bare at komme i gang for dem og få iPad og web-udgave til at snakke lidt sammen. Det burde – taget i betragtning hvor fed Wireds iPad-udgave iøvrigt er – ikke være så voldsomt svært.
Flade oplags-tal sætter socialt handicappede iPad-magasiner stolen for døren.
iPad-håbet fik en spand koldt vand i hovedet, da den amerikanske oplagskontrol, ABC, barslede med de seneste magasiner-på-iPad-salgstal kort før nytår. De var ikke gode. Nu bryder alle deres hoveder for at finde ud af hvorfor. Nogen siger prisen er for høj, andre at de stadig er for tamme – og andre igen peger på tekniske børnesygdomme. I virkeligheden ligger hunden begravet et andet sted. Det manglende lift-off skyldes at magasinerne har glemt det vigtigste ved nettet: dialogen og åbenheden. De beskyttede haver og stive betalingsmure må dø, hvis iPad-magasinerne for alvor skal leve.
God start iPad-eventyret startede vældigt lovende for de etablerede magasiner, efter Apples iPad-lancering i april sidste år. Det amerikanske Wired kunne, f.eks., melde om over 100.000 solgte eksemplarer af deres første nummer – næsten 15 procent af månedens samlede oplag.
iPad-eventyret startede vældigt lovende for de etablerede magasiner, efter Apples iPad-lancering i april sidste år. Det amerikanske Wired kunne, f.eks., melde om over 100.000 solgte eksemplarer af deres første nummer – næsten 15 procent af månedens samlede oplag.
Wired på iPad, januar 2011. Cover.
Og selvom nummer to kun har solgt et par og tredive tusinde eksplarer, var tonen optimistisk. Det ekstraordinært store salg af førsteudgaven skyldtes nyhedens interesse blandt bladets early adopters-læsere, og i oktober skrev Wireds chefredaktør, Chris Anderson, i en mail til mig at “subsequent issues have told in the multiple tens of thousands. Sales are now rising again as iPad penetration grows”. Og så skulle det nok være muligt at nå førsteudgavens niveau igen senest næste år, spekulerede jeg i en anden post.
Selvom ingen andre magasiner havde en ligeså kanonagtig start som Wired, startede det også godt for GQ, Vanity Fair, Glamour og Mens Health, som er de tre andre magasiner, der nu foreligger tal for. Vanity Fair startede ud med små 10.000 solgte eksemplarer, GQ omkring 15.000, Glamour lidt over 1.000 og Mens Health lidt over 2.000.
Igen: der var jo næsten ingen iPads på markedet og i takt med beretningerne om det strygende salg af Apples tablet-computer gned alle sig i hænderne og følte håbet vokse i maven.
Halv avis-kiosk – flad kurve Men, men, men – så let skulle det ikke gå. Det viser de første officielle tal for efterårets faktiske oplagstals-forløb fra ABC, der begyndte at florere på nettet efter jul. Her er der nemlig ikke meget vi-sælger-flere-numre-i-takt-med-at-flere-og-flere-får-iPad at spore. Faktisk ser kurverne overraskende flade ud, som graferne , der plotter løssalg på iPad og print overfor hinanden, viser. En god start efterfulgt af to,tre, fire eller fem måneders stilstand. Her er en af dem. Se selv de andre på Mashable
Solgte eksemplarer af Wired i hhv løssalg og på iPad. Abonnementer (som der er mange flere af) ikke medtaget.
Den lidt triste konklusion er, at de nye læsere som iPad-udbredelsen hver måned fremtryller ser ud til at blive ædt op igen af gamle iPad-indehavere, der ikke hopper fra magasinerne igen, efter at have prøvet dem en gang eller to.
Graferne viser også noget andet: Nemlig at alle fem magasiner sælger – sådan plus/minus – halvt så meget fra Apples app-store som de gør fra avis-kioskerne. iPad er halvt løssalg. I hvertfald lige nu. I USA.
Blandede danske reaktioner Fra to af danske magasin-udgivere, der allerede nu har erfaringer på egen krop, er meldingerne blandede. Hos Bonnier og Illustreret Videnskab, der gik på iPad i september, nikker de genkendende til de amerikanske tal. Heller ikke de kan holde førsteudgavens oplag. “Men det overrasker mig overhovedet ikke. Jeg var mere forbavset over hypen, da de første magasiner kom på gaden. For vi vidste jo godt, at det ikke kunne vare ved” siger Bonniers udviklingsdirektør til Comon . Det overrasker heller ikke mig. Jeg anmeldte deres førsteudgave – og det var noget juks.
Hos Mobil-, Zoom-, Gear og iPhone Magasin-udgiveren Mediaprovider ser direktør Brian Dixen anderledes på sagen. Han glæder sig over et fabel-agtigt efterjulesalg.
Facebook opslag og lidt kommentarer.
Og, som Brian Dixen senere uddybede over for mig: “Så er vores iPad-udgaver heller ikke så dyre!”
Pris, download osv. Netop prisen er totalt gennemgående i alle kommentarerne til det flade iPad-magasin salg. De er for dyre. Du kan ikke tage det samme for en iPadudgave som et printmagasin. Læserne forstår variable omkostninger – de vil gerne betale, men også have rabat for den sparede tryk og distribution. Og vigtigst: papirmagasiner giver noget iPad’en ikke gør. De har en fysisk form, der gør dem lækre og eksklusive på en særlig måde. Problemet er selvfølgelig at finde det magiske pris-punkt. Brian Dixen mener det rigtige tal ligger ca. en tredjedel under løssalgsprisen.
Men det er ikke kun prisen, der trykker. Flere beklager sig over de første iPadmagasiners teknik: for store og tunge at downloade. For lidt innovation, for meget papir, siger andre. Og så er det for svært at få øje på magasinerne, når der kommer et nyt nummer. App-storen er en dårlig butik.
Sandhedens time Alle kommentatorerne har ret. iPad-magasinerne giver ikke nok value-for-money. Derfor halter salget. Og det er ikke fordi de over en kam er dårlige. Faktisk er de allesammen rimelige udgaver af deres trykte moderblad. Nogle er decideret blærerede – Wired f.eks. giver den max gas i en ny opsætning med dejlig navigation, gode og lærerige interaktive info-grafikker og video og lyd embeddet på den gode måde.
Problemet er, at iPad-magasinerne ikke giver nok ekstra. At de allesammen mangler den lille, men enormt væsentlige kvalitet, som alle med adgang til nettet de sidste ti år har lært at sætte så stor pris på, at den nærmest konstituerer den digitale læseoplevelse: dynamikken. iPad-magasinerne er deres egne små øer, hvor indholdet lever isoleret, gemt bort bag app’ens beskyttende mure. Og der er ingen exits til den store digitale verden. Ingen udvekslingskanaler, ingen “tweet this” eller “del på Facebook”. Og ingen kommentar-felter, heller. Faktisk virker det som om al samtale er forbudt. “Shhh – her læses!” er holdningen fra printmediernes massemedielle højborge.
Det er det, oplagstallenes flade kurver fortæller: at iPad-magasiner, der kun er illustrerede udgaver af glittede tryksager, aldrig kan blive andet og mere end støtte-ben til den haltende print-udvikling. De kan nok opfange et læsertab. Men ikke for alvor stå i stedet for, endsige overtage, de trykte flagskibes position. Grundstødte eller ej.
Socialt handicappede Nu er det ikke ond vilje at iPad-magasinerne i den grad virker socialt handicappede. Ihvertfald Wired ved godt hvilken vej vinden blæser. “We’ve got a proper social media layer coming into our app later this year. I love Flipboard, too, and we’ll definitely be taking tips from them” skrev Chris Anderson til mig i oktober – selvom han lige før jul måtte skyde hans deadline, da jeg spurgte til hvor det blev af. ”Probably end Q1. This is software development–it takes time!” var svaret.
Netop Flipboard er det nok mest succesfulde iPad-magasin til dato, kåret som årets app 2010 og den iPad-app jeg selv personligt bruger allermest (i et close tie med min mail). Flipboard udmærker sig slet ikke selv at lave indholdet, men udelukkende sætte de sider, dine twitter eller facebook-venner linker til op på en enormt lækker bladreagtig måde. Altså et socialt magasin, hvor dine venner er redaktørerne, indholdet er det bedste de kan finde på nettet her og nu og layout’et lækkert computer-touch-genereret. Et magasin, hvor dynamikken og præsentationen i den grad er i højsædet.
Byg bro Det er ikke alle, der er lige så socialt omfavnende som Wired (i princippet) er det. Wired udmærker sig nemlig, i modsætning til stort set alle andre, ved at have alle væsentlige dele af deres indhold tilgængeligt på deres hjemmeside også. Gratis. Ja, du læser rigtigt: præcist de samme artikler som du kan købe i trykt form eller i til din iPad, kan du læse uden beregning på wired.com. Og det er en enorm social fordel: for hvordan skulle du kunne dele indhold du ikke kan linke til? Det er jo rent selvmål, hvis du kræver at dem du vil dele en artikel med på facebook eller twitter skal sidde på en iPad og også have den pågældende app installeret. Fordi du dermed begrænser den faktiske deling til det helt ligegyldige. Som sagerne står i dag kan du kun få et socialt liv op og stå om dit iPad-magasin, hvis der også findes en webudgave af det, som kan danne bro mellem dig og dine ikke-nødvendigvis-24-7-på-iPad-venner.
Web-broen mellem iPad-magasinet og det fællesskab, der deler det, behøver ikke være tyk og fed. Du behøver ikke have alt indhold i fuld-længde, alle billeder, grafikker, videoer og lydstumper og hvad ved jeg på din hjemmeside. Mindre kan gøre det. Faktisk skal der ofte ikke mere end ti liniers tekst til, for at du kan danne linket fra dit beskyttede indhold til det store community. Se engang på Huffington Post. De fylder frejdigt deres forside op med historier fra New York Times, Guardian og andre, hvor hovedlinket peger trafikken direkte væk fra sitet selv. Alligevel forstår de at fastholde debatten, kun ved at have en superkort abstract af artiklen hos sig selv. Ligesom blandt andet 180grader – i et noget andet setup – gør det herhjemme.
Om du giver alt dit indhold gratis væk på nettet – som Wired – eller nøjes med at reducere indholdet til små Maggi-terninger, er en smagssag. Den store frygt er selvfølgelig, at gratisudgaven istedet for at promovere og være med til at give liv til betalte iPad-udgave, kannibaliserer den, og at en række af de læsere, der ellers ville have købt iPad, nu nøjes med gratis-web-versionen i stedet. Mens håbet er, at gratis-udgaven skaffer så meget mere opmærksomhed og så mange flere gratis-læsere, at endnu flere melder sig i iPad-biksen. Maggi-versionen kan derfor være et godt første skridt.
Intet valg For der er ikke noget valg. Der er ingen alternativer for iPad-magasiner der vil undgå at stivne og dø i glemsel som appendixer til trykte moderskibe. Måske gør det ondt at tage skridtet. Men det gør meget mere ondt ikke at gøre det. For der er ingen rigtig fremtid i en post-print verden uden socialt liv. Og intet socialt liv uden indhold der kan deles.
Flipboard and Wired are two of the most acclaimed and celebrated iPad-magazines. Both are, however, willing to embrace other platforms the minute they’re here. Or are they?
“I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we’re on other platforms” Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard told me in an email correspondence, when I asked him if they were planning to make an Android-version of their popular app. (Read my post on what Flipboard is here)
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, was even more to the point, when I asked him if he believed in cross-platform iPad/Android/Chrome-tablet publishing. “Yes!” was the brief answer he wrote back to me.
Helped by Adobe Chris Andersons statement shouldn’t come as a big surprise, however. Since the initial announcement of the Wired iPad app, Wired have stressed they didn’t plan to play only within Apples walled garden. Being developed in close cooperation with Adobe, the Wired iPad app has been build for easy conversion to other platforms.
Only this week, Adobe unveiled their new digital publishing suite, making it possible for publishers easily to make… yes, right, “Wired-style digital magazine” (in the words of Mashable) ready for, in Adobes words, ”cross-platform viewers (running iOS or Adobe AIR®) on the most popular tablets, smart-phones, and devices, as well as through mobile marketplaces such as the Apple App Store and Google Apps Marketplace.”
Strain on editorial ressources Making the iPad-version of Wired magazine is neither cheap nor easy, however. (Right now it takes some extra +20% editorial ressources for Wired; they’re hoping to get this down to 10-15% as their processes improve - Chris Anderson told me – read on in this post for more details). And no matter how clever Adobes new tools are, cross-platform publication is bound to tie some extra work in the process. Not only the operating system of the viewing devices changes – the hardware on which the tablet edition will have to run will also differ. The different screen-sizes alone will impose burdens to the Wired crew, in their efforts to “a well-designed package, with all the pieces designed to work together and create a coherent whole”, as Chris Anderson put it.
Flipboard: first things first
Mike McCue is aware that cross-platform publication might not just be another walk in the park. The real question is not if Flipboard is going to be available on other platforms, but when this will happen. ”How much time between now and then is the real question” he said.
“Right now we are focused on rounding out our product on one platform (rather than de-focusing my team across multiple platforms). That one platform is obviously the iPad because we think it is far and away the best platform for the Flipboard experience with lots of user growth and exciting publisher/content opportunities. It is the epicenter of everything in our space right now.”
To Flipboard it probably also matters, that they still have some way to go, before the product itself – their social tablet magazine – is fully there. After having acquired Ellerdale this summer (official press release here), they’re still working hard on integrating the Ellerdale technology into Flipboard itself (trying to impose a semantic element to the way news menitoned by your friends are prioritized). Actually the priority of getting this stuff right might very well be what Mike McCue hints at in his “rather than de-focusing my team across multiple platforms”).
In our email-correspondence Mike McCue actually ends up stating they’re “watching the rest of the tablet space closely and will be open minded to those if and when someone builds an amazing tablet that we think our users will love.” Apparently not just any Android-tablet will do!
Want to know more? Mike McCue also elaborated on how Flipboard is turning tweets upside down and on the perspective in the semantic filtering in response to my questions. I hope to get back to these in separate posts.
If you’d like to know more about what Chris Anderson said to me, I’ve written these three additional posts for you:
Få magasiner – for slet ikke at tale om aviser – har lavet så helhjertet en iPad-udgave som det amerikanske tech-magasin Wired. Forleden fangede jeg Chris Anderson, Wireds chefredaktør, på email og spurgte ham hvordan det er gået. Og fik svar som ikke før har været offentligt tilgængelige: Hvor mange eksemplarer sælger Wired af deres iPad-udgave, hvad koster det at lave den – og hvad er udviklingsplanerne? Læs om svarene i tre artikler på min blog.
Sælger i ti-tusindvis om måneden
Wireds iPad-magasin sælger ifølge Chris Anderson “in the multiple tens of thousands” hver måned. Og tallet stiger i takt med at flere og flere får iPads.
Det første nummer solgte dog væsentligt mere. Næsten 110.000 eksemplarer blev det til. Men det havde også i den grad nyhedens interesse.
Over 20 procent ekstraarbejde til redaktionen
Det er ikke let at lave Wireds iPad-udgave. Faktisk ligger der over 20 procent ekstraarbejde for redaktionen i den nye udgivelsesproces. Et tal som måske falder til 10-15 procent, når først den er rigtigt indarbejdet.
Læs hele historien om hvor meget og hvad det kræver for Wired at lave deres iPad-udgave på min blog. Ikke før sete tal + billedgennemgang af forskelle og ligheder: Wired on iPad takes up +20% extra editorial resources
Socialt medie-lag på trapperne
Wired på iPad fungerer på mange måder rigtigt godt. Men mulighederne for at kommentere, tweete eller “synes godt om” har det hidtil skortet på. Men ikke meget længere. “We’ve got a proper social media layer coming into our app later this year” fortæller Chris Anderson i en ny konkret melding. Og fortæller også, at de blandt andet har ladet sig inspirere af et andet meget rost iPad-magasin, Flipboard
Getting an iPad-version of a printed magazine right is far more than a question of pressing a few buttons. You’ll have to work for it. A lot.
The other day I caught Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired, by mail and asked him: “How much extra does it take you in terms of editorial resources. 5, 10, 25 per cent?” He answered: “Now about +20%. Hopefully, we’ll get that down to 10-15% as our processes improve.” This, I believe, is the first time Wired has told about the actual costs of tablet-enabling their magazine (I briefly know Chris Anderson from a conference he and I both attended last year, resulting in this co-written post).
Not really one-to-one
At first sight this is a surprisingly high percentage, as Wired Magazine on iPad presents itself almost identical to the printed version. From the Magazine cover to the last page you have the feeling of reading through the same content. Paying a little closer attention, however, you start noticing the differences. The layout differs in painstaking details – print to iPad, vertical iPad to horizontal, articles are enriched with video-clips and soundbites, info-graphics sports objects spinnable in 3D and embedded navigational elements. The result is, I think, very convincing. (See below for walk-through of 4+ ways the Ipad edition differs from print).
A well-designed package stands out from the atomized world of web content
To understand why the guys at Wired are taking themselves through such pain to produce the iPad-version of their magazine, you’ll have to understand what kind of product they’re trying to create. To Chris Anderson what gives the iPad-magazine value, is the notion of – as he put it – “a well-designed package, with all the pieces designed to work together and create a coherent whole” which “stands out from the atomized world of web content”. It delivers value “from the packaging of content, with design, long-form writing, luxurious photography, illustration etc.”
It’s creating this “well-designed package” that takes them so long at Wired. Putting their craftmanship into not only re-packaging their print-product, but doing this in a way that “works together” and create a cohent whole” on the iPad-platform as well.
Decent trade-off
As I’ve described in another post Wired sells “in the multiple of tens of thousands iPad copies a month“. A figure which is rising as iPad-penetration grows, says Chris Anderson. Compared to a total paid circulation of some 750.000 copies a month, one could very well expect iPad editions to account for 10 percent of total sales by summer 2011 (at a price of $3,99 compared to the printeditions $4,99) growing futher as new tablet devices starts getting hold of the market. Reaching 15 percent by 2012 doesn’t seem farfetched either. Which would be a decent tradeoff for a 15 per cent increase in editorial cost, I’d say.
— ### — ### —
FOUR WAYS THE IPAD-EDITION OF WIRED DIFFERS FROM PRINT
How they differ 1: Find five errors
While the covers of the print- and iPad-versions look the same, five small adjustments have been made in the iPad-version. 1. Only two of the three stories hinted to at the top are the same. 2. And the typography differs. 3. The text at the car is pushed slightly down and to the right on the page. 4. The arrow pointing to Elon Musk has disappeared. And 5. the “batteries included – oct. 2010″ is moved from the bottom right to left.
Print left, iPad right
Turning the iPad 45 degrees gives you the horizontal version and highlights how deliberate choices have been made in the layout process. The same elements are once again twisted and stretched ever so lightly, making the horizontal version as harmonious as the vertical standard.
iPad cover, horizontal
It looks like a piece of cake. But actually it means redesigning the entire magazine not once nor twice but thrice. And this goes for all of the more than 150 pages in the magazine.
How they differ 2: Movie-clips and sound-bites
Producing the iPad-edition isn’t just a question of the lay-out of the elements, however. It’s also about enriching the content with digital material, where it makes sense. In the iPad-version”The Great Zombie Bubble”-article, eg., features 2:33 minutes of embedded video-clips from “The Walking Dead” and “Dead Set”, while the “Mad Max Is a Fraud”-rant is being read aloud in its entity by the author.
Walking Dead
How they differ 3: Illustrations and infographics
Some of the illustrations in the iPad-edition of Wired are just there, plain and square like the ones in the printed magazine. Others are pinch- and zoom-able like the gorgeous photo accompanying the “Crude Awakening”-article. Yet others are represented in 3D, making it possible for you to spin the object around, having a look at it from all angles. Have a look at these two versions of the “Perfect Pitch”-article. The print-version shows the movements involved in drawing. The iPad-version plays the full movement when touched.
Perfect Pitch. Print left, iPad right.
Not only does it take ressources to make the interactive 3D-version of the Perfect Pitch. It also takes an editorial multi-platform focus thinking out the two versions in the first place.
In order to make info-graphics work, Wired has adopted an extensive use of illustrations with embedded numbers, corresponding to each their explanatory text. In the printed versions this is a well-developed technique. And it shows out to work really well in the iPad-edition as well. On the iPad the technique makes it possible to compress several print-pages into one screen, keeping the illustration fixed on the screen, while the text-boxes are displayed individually as the numbers are pressed.
How they differ 4+
And then, off course, the whole experience of holding a printed, glossy, magazine in your hands is different from holding a sleek device of glass and steel. First and foremost the navigational structure is very different: the full body of the printed magazine is there, right in front of you – you can actually feel the amount of information; it has weight and physicality. You can feel the paper as your fingers flip through the pages. It’s kind of like dancing – sometimes perhaps struggling or even fighting – with a corpus of information and sensory inputs.
This is not true for magazines on tablets. Tablet magazines doesn’t reveal what amount of information is stored away underneath it’s good looking cover. It’s a very much more abstract the magazine. To adjust for this, Wired magazine embarks several different navigational techniques, like this one, allowing you to skim through the entire magazine.
Navigational aid in iPad magazine
Related posts, based on the same interview:
During the email-correspondance Chris Anderson pointed to several other very interesting aspects of the Wired iPad-experience. I’ve written those up in seperate posts. Read on:
For the first time hints of sales figures for the monthly iPad edition of Wired Magazine, which Conde Nast first launched in June, are now available. In an email interview Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired, tells me all issues – except the first – “have all sold in the multiple tens of thousands”. The first much-anticipated issue of the Wired iPad-edition, “sold nearly 110,000 copies” Chris Anderson writes to me (I briefly know Chris Anderson from a conference he and I both attended last year, resulting in this co-written post).
The cover of Wired iPad Magazine, October 2010. Sells in the multiple tens of thousands and rising
The numbers should be compared to a paid print circulation of some 750,000 issues a month; newsstand sales are in the mid-eighties. That is: the June edition outsold newsstand sales by lengths, and totalled almost 15 per cent of all sales. The print and iPad editions did cost the same at that time, later on iPad prices was lowered from $4.99 to $3.99. As the sales figures for the subsequent editions shows, most of the June sales were driven by the initial interest, which could not be sustained.
I take “sales in the multiple tens of thousands” to mean somewhere between 30,000 and 80,000, and even though it definitively is lower than the “nearly 110,000″ number, it’s still pretty strong. Especially since Chris Anderson adds that “sales are now rising again as iPad penetration grows”. Reaching a 10 percent share of total circulation – 75,000 copies – at the time the iPad-edition turns one year doesn’t seem unrealistic at all, as iPad sales are still growing steeply and as the Wired staff themselves are still working on getting the iPad app right.
Also new non-Apple tablets are now starting to entering the market, based primarily on the Google Android operating system. If these in any way resembles the phones based on the same system, we can expect Android tablets to start outselling iPads very soon, creating yet more potential Wired on tablet-customers ready to be addressed by Wired. Chris Anderson does seem ready for this. I asked him “Do you believe in cross-platform iPad/Android/Chrome-tablet publishing? In a year or so we should have plenty of non-iPad tablets around!” His reply: “Yes!”
Part of the email-interview with Chris Anderson. Screenshot.
Related posts, based on the same interview:
During the email-correspondance Chris Anderson pointed to several other very interesting aspects of the Wired iPad-experience. I’ve written those up in seperate posts. Read on:
Before the end of the year a complete social networking layer is to be rolled out as a part of a new Wired magazine iPad-app, updating the app first introduced in May this year. So says Chris Anderson editor in chief at Wired magazine in an email-interview I had the chance to conduct with him (I briefly know Chris Anderson from a conference he and I both attended last year, resulting in this co-written post). Why is this interesting? Because Wired magazine is among the vanguard of iPad publishers, staking out new ground for the entire publishing industry.
"Tell us on Facebook"-button in Wired iPad-article
In my blog post I called the move “pretty unambitious” and noted that I as reader actually care about what others think of the article I’m reading, and that there surely has to be ways to make this way more prominent. And in my starting email to Chris Anderson I followed up by stating that I am “looking forward to more in-depth twitter-like functionality”
“We’ve got a proper social media layer coming into our app later this year” he replied back. And although he didn’t want to go to much into details before the launch, I did get a little something more out him.
“Looking forward to more in-depth twitter-like functionality. Personally I think Flipboard is awesome. Might be some learnings there” I wrote to him, in the correspondence. (Flipboard is an iPad-app which takes your twitter-account, grabs all the links, and produces a magazine-like flip-pages experience out of all the goodies the ones you follow care to mention (read a post I did on Flipboard here)).
The social iPad magazine Flipboard from which Wired is taking tips
Chris picked up on this one, stating “I love Flipboard, too, and we’ll definitely be taking tips from them”.
The combination of the somewhat lofty “social media layer”-terminology combined with Chris’ appraisal of Flipboard, gives you a hint something is brewing. Though it’s kind of tough to say exactly what.
Before speculating to hard, one should be aware that the concept of the Wired iPad is one of well-packaged control. The Wired iPad edition is the printed magazine translated as gently and intelligent as possible to the tablet form factor. In the correspondence I asked Chris Anderson to the defining characteristics of their iPad app. This is how he replied:
“Magazines get their value from the packaging of content, with design, long-form writing, luxurious photography, illustration etc. (…) So the notion of a well-designed package, with all the pieces designed to work together and create a coherent whole, stands out from the atomized world of web content.”
The navigation pane functionality in Wireds iPad-app. Will comments be displayed the same way?
From this I get that we should expect a social layer which respects the unity of the Wired magazine iPad edition. That is: comments won’t inline in articles, and will generally be presented in a way, that interferes as little as possible with the reading experience itself. Most likely a seperate pane will appear when tapping or swiping the iPad in a special way. Like the way the navigation panes works in the Wired iPad app today. Probably a little “share”-icon next to the title or at the end of the article will urge you to spread the news and indicate of the activity of commenting.
Confronting this approach to the Flipboard-approach reveals to very different guiding principles. The Flipboard-approach relies on a single set of people to follow, but from thereon Flipboard publishes whatever these persons care to link to, no matter where the content originates from – and no matter what “editorial package” the content originally appeared in. I therefore take the “we’ll definitively be taking tips from them” to indicate high standards, more than a copying of the basic concept.
The same "Tell us on Facebook"-button article on wired.com
One of the interesting things to see is to which extend the social media layer of the wired.com website will integrate to the social media layer of the ipad-edition. Chances are they will, I’d say. Actually this is one of the great strenghts of the Wired cross-platform publishing (print, web, tablet) – that the social activity around the content can be shared across platforms as well. When the same article is to be found on wired.com website, fully equipped with commenting and social media integration, the discussion on wired.com and on the Wired iPad-edition could actually be the very same. Meaning that a comment made on wired.com would automatically show up on the Wired iPad-edition as well and vice versa.
By the same token, sharing an article would also be platform-independent. Otherwise sharing an iPad-article would be somewhat in vain, since it would require the one you share the article with to actually be a Wired-iPad-edition subscriber himself in order to access the article. But when the article is also on the web, the non-iPad-edition subscriber will just open up the web-edition instead.
Related posts, based on the same interview:
During the email-correspondance, Chris Anderson pointed to several other very interesting aspects of the Wired iPad-experience. I’ve written those up in seperate posts. Read on:
På mediawatch.dk kører der lige nu en debat i kølvandet på en artikel, hvor Stig Ørskov, JP/Politiken-direktør, bebrejder TV2, at deres apps til iphones er gratis, fordi han – sekunderet af Ebbe Dal, direktør for Danske Dagblades forening – menerTV2 ødelægger en historisk chance for at opdrage folk til at indhold koster.
Jeg synes det er en temmelig apparte indfaldsvinkel. Ihvertfald den del af argumentationen, der handler om, “vi” ikke må vænne folk til gratis på mobilen, ligesom de er det på nettet. Som om folk gerne ville betale, hvis bare de fik nogen andre vaner.
Sådan er det ikke. Folk vil ikke betale så længe de kan få et gratis produkt rundt om hjørnet, som giver dem ca. samme værdi. At få penge for indhold for medierne handler ikke om vænne folk til noget som helst – det handler om at finde ud af, hvordan man kan lave tjenester, som giver brugerne nok ekstraværdi til at det er noget værd.
Nå, ovre på mediawatch har jeg skrevet en kommentar til diskussionen, der spiller en lidt anden bold på emnet. Kommentarer ligger, sjovt nok, bag en betalingsmur, så du skal have login for at læse den derovre. Så jeg gengiver min kommentar her også:
En sjov observation: Jeg har netop for tredje gang betalt for en iPad-udgave af et magasin. Jeg overvejede hver gang. Og endte med at sige “ja tak”. Pris: 25 kr pr nummer.
Det særligt sjove er, at hele magasinet – alle artikler – ligger på magasinets hjemmeside. Fuldstændigt gratis. Med grafikker og videoer og masser af kommentarer og links. Men jeg ville alligevel hellere have den tilpassede iPad-udgave. Et helstøbt, afgrænset redaktionelt produkt. Som jeg kan læse og sige: nu har jeg læst det! Det kan jeg godt lide. (På nettet bliver du aldrig færdig – for nettet er uendeligt, og du bliver aldrig færdig. Der er altid et link til…). Læren er: giv merværdi i app’en og tag penge for det. Kan du ikke det i tilstrækkelig grad, så lad være.
For at gøre historien fuldstændig, abonnerer jeg også – i dyre domme – på den trykte udgave af magasinet. Men der er artiklerne flade – uden videoer og liv. Og så tager det tid for det, at komme frem til min postkasse. iPad-udgaven får jeg med det samme det udkommer. Det vil jeg gerne have.
Magasin-følelse og digitalt liv sammen har – og jeg er lidt overrasket over det – fået mig til pungen. (Jeg tror dog jeg opsiger print-abonnementet så snart jeg kan komme til det. For det læser jeg faktisk ikke rigtigt mere.)
The October-issue of Wired Magazine, which was released on iPad yesterday, sports the first Wired attempt to enhance the digital magazine with a social dimension. And does this in a somewhat surprising way: Instead of displaying comments from and discussions among the readers as a part of the Wired iPad-magazine, commenting takes place on an external page – namely Facebook.
At least this is what Wired does on this months feature article on – the new Facebook movie. This is what the integration looks like, starting with the article opening screen:
Scrolling down a few pages gets you to this illustration, with the “Tell us on Facebook” call to action:
Clicking the button and a new screen “slides up”:
…opening a Facebook-page, dedicated to the article “Wired Magazine’s Story about The Social Network”:
In this way discussions and comments on the article is removed one step from the articles themselves. It ensures the “purity” of the original article is not messed up with reader contributions. It’s the least intrusive way to bring sociality into a glossy magazine.
Also it’s a pretty unambitious one. As reader I actually care about what others think of the article I’m reading. And surely there’ll be ways to make this way more prominent, without sacrificing the calm reading experince.
However it does seem plausible, that this is a stealth-like attempt to try out the let’s-create-a-facebook-page-dedicated-to-the-article-and-have-discussions-there-experiment in a context where it’s legitimate and natural – namely on an article about… Facebook itself. Notice that no other articles in the entire October issue are socially enhanced in this (or other) way.
Interesting to see what’s next!
PS. The entire article is available on wired.com (like the rest of the magazine) as well. Here tell-us-on-facebook is implemented as well – alongside on-article-page-commens, featured “retweet” buttons, as well as Digg, Yahoo! Buzz StumbleUpon and ShareThis-functionality. As of writing, the wired.com-page has 439 retweets and 16 comments. The facebook-page has nine comments and 48 likes.
Today and in the following weeks the twitter.com website will be extensively revamped. In a way, that remarkably resembles the new iPad Twitter app. The panes, “in app” pictures and videos etc. I’ve been using on my iPad Twitter-app, now seems duplicated to the new twitter.com website.
Basically it looks like we’re talking about the same application – only coded for two different devices. The distinction between “app” and “web” definitively blurs out. Which proves the web is not dead. Or does it?
The new twitter.com as presented by Twitter themselves:
The Twitter for iPad app presented by a YouTube (and iPad) user:
The twitter.com strategy seems to be a web-embracing, multi-platform strategy. In this way, the “the web is dead” maxim laid forth by Chris Anderson in the latest issue of Wired magazine (read my take on it here – in Danish) doesn’t apply to Twitter, it seems. “The web is dead” thesis states that companies prefer monopoly-like market structures, where they can dictate the price, shelved from the open markets competition. And that they, whenever they get the chance, will want to escape from the open web and create their own closed, non-competitive circles instead. They want to abandon the web and go for custom applications instead. But Twitter builds up their web-presence while building up app-presence as well.
At least two things explains why the twitter.com redesign move goes contrary to “web is dead”:
First, Twitter is not a content-company. It’s not about creating valuable content, which needs to be locked away to avoid it form being “stolen”. Twitter is about sharing information already existing out there. They need to be open and linkable to function. Therefore the open web is not a threat to Twitter. On the contrary: the open Internet is the Twitter prerequisite sine qua non.
Second, the web is not, and will not be, the most prominent way to either tweet or read tweets. Apps, especially mobile apps, will be. No matter how cool the twitter.com website is made, it will mostly serve to make twitter.com more visible and appealing, attracting new users. And it will set a standard of what tweeting is about.
Third, even though on the web, Twitter is not completely open. You have to be logged in to use the system – and using twitter is only fun if you invest further in your twitter-profile by adding people to follow – and getting someone to follow you. This all makes it harder for you to leave the system.
The real “web is dead”-test lies elsewhere: Will the Twitter API – which allows third parties to make their own Twitter-apps drawing on what’s going on in Twitter – remain completely open? From a commercial point of view, Twitter should be trying to close it off, asap. And only this April Twitter did make a move this way, buying the most successful third-party app out there, Tweetie re-branding it as the Twitter-app.
Will Twitter keep the playing field all level, treating competing apps and their own Twitter-app alike – or will Twitter introduce layers of data or develop special functions which are “Twitter”-only, serving to keep Twitter as an isle of it’s own, fenced from competition . I say the latter. But that’s for time to tell.
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