A conversation with a magazine company's production head: the strong motivation to keep print alive

One of the benefits of having been in the publishing business so long is the ability to pick up the phone and call a friend to get their perspective. Late last week I talked to the head of production at one B2B magazine company to say hello and to get an idea of where they were heading.

I was surprised to hear how upbeat they were concerning the company's prospects to launch new digital products for mobile and tablets. "I think that by this time next year we should have all our titles inside the Apple App Store," the production manager told me. "I've been assigned the task of making this happen, and I don't see any reason it can't be done fairly quickly."

One of the questions I wanted to ask was whether the magazine art directors were playing around with digital publishing solutions – either through the Adobe DPS or another solution such as Mag+ or Aquafadas. "Not that I am aware of," the production manager told me, "that would be my job."

It was at that point that the bells started to ring in my head.

My own experience at magazine companies is that on any given week I would receive a solicitation from a vendor to sell me Flash flipbook or some other digital publishing product. Sometimes, if I had not heard of the company, I would invite them in to hear their spiel. The sales pitch always started with a demonstration of features, but always ended with the words "cheap and easy" – it was the closer, and I'm afraid it appears to be a sure fire winner with many publishers.

But sometimes I would receive the call and simply tell them to call the head of production – it was a quick way to get rid of the vendor, though I knew that wouldn't be the end of it.

In the world of print magazines, the production head is the interface between the magazine and the printer – they are often the person who gives the art director the issue layout, complete with ad placements, then takes the final InDesign or Quark files and passes them on to the printer's pre-press department. Then they shepherd the magazine through to final printing and distribution.

By handling digital magazine decisions, they can pretty much decide their own future: if the digital magazine is the product of the PDFs produced for print, they remain in the middle of things; but if a native digital publishing solution is used, they may find themselves suddenly out of the loop. After all, an art director that uses a plug-in solution can handle most of the work themselves, and can even be the interface with Apple or Google if they have access to the developer account.

I asked this production manager about the choices they were considering to get their titles into the Newsstand and, not surprisingly, all involved PDFs derived from the print product. "I really don't want to have to deal with InDesign files once the print magazine goes to bed," the manager said. "Once the print magazine is done, that's it, we're finished."

I suppose every publishing company is different in how they handle digital platforms. But who, exactly, is the person in charge of creating these new products may ultimately determine the solution used. For some titles, there are strong, internal advocates from keeping print alive, even in digital form. Even if, ultimately, the print product disappears, some have positioned themselves well to keep themselves intimately involved in the digital production process though the selection of the digital publishing solution.

Morning Brief: Google reaches deal with European regulators; Dish Network bids on Sprint Nextel; Greece reaches deal with European lenders, confirms job losses

The New York Times reported yesterday that Google had reached a deal with European regulators in which the search giant will have to "clarly label search results from it own properties. The changes will effect results for shopping and flights, where competitors claimed that Google's search results favored their own results to the detriment of competitors such as Yelp of TripAdvisor.

Dish Network has reportedly bid on Sprint Nextel. Dish is said to be offering a cash and stock deal worth $25.2 billion. The bid is an attempt to defeat Softbank's efforts to acquire the carrier.

"The DISH proposal clearly presents Sprint shareholders with a superior alternative to the pending SoftBank proposal," said Charlie Ergen, Chairman of DISH Network in a statement on the bid. "Sprint shareholders will benefit from a higher price with more cash while also creating the opportunity to participate more meaningfully in a combined DISH/Sprint with a significantly-enhanced strategic position and substantial synergies that are not attainable through the pending SoftBank proposal."

Greece, too, has reached a deal, but at tremendous cost. Today Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said that a deal has been struck with the troika – the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – which sets the requirements that must be met by the Greek government to continue to receive bailout funding.

"Fiscal performance is on track to meet the program targets, and the government is committed to fully implement all agreed fiscal measures for 2013-2014 that are not yet in place," the government said in a statement. Reaching the agreement means the release of €2.8 billion in funds, along with €7.2 billion for the recapitalization of Greek banks.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras confirmed that by the end of next year 15,000 state positions will be eliminated, with 4,000 to go this year. Overall, one-fifth of all state employment will be eliminated by the agreement, some 150,000 jobs in total by 2015.

Morning Brief: WSJ updates new Newsstand app, improves video quality; T-Mobile introduces iPhone upgrade program to lure new customers

The Wall Street Journal, which moved it stand-alone app into the Apple Newsstand at the end of last year, today issued an app update to fix bugs associated with the move into the Newsstand. The update also upgrades the quality of the video streaming inside app, raising it to HD quality.

The app has received very high marks from recent reviewers inside the App Store – ignoring those reviewers shocked, shocked that one would have to pay a subscription. The only real complaint, and one that app developers might consider, is that the app still does not give the reader access to commenting and that the app remains fairly slow.

Google, which updated both its iOS version of its Chrome browser and its Google Search app, today issued a minor update to Google+ Local.

The updates are coming a bit slower now as we are in that middle area between iOS introductions. Apple released iOS 6 on September 19 of last year and the release seemed to cause havoc with many apps, especially those using the Adobe DPS. But the updates have been made and now many developers are waiting on WWDC to see what Apple has in store for iOS 7. Many expect that iOS 7 may be a big update of the interface, something that is sure to mean developers will have to once again scramble to make sure their apps are in good working order.

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T-Mobile starts selling the iPhone on Friday and it is getting aggressive in its efforts to attract new customers. Today the company announced that is offering new customers a trade-inb program where they can bring their iPhone 4 or 4S to the carrier and exchange it for an iPhone 5 at no cost, and get a $120 credit towards the monthly device fee. The normal price T-Mobile will be charging is $100, plus an additional $20 per month charge for two years.

The biggest obstacle T-Mobile faces remains, however, its network coverage which continues to have huge gaps in it in rural areas.

Former MPA executive launches 'Thin Reads' – the first website dedicated to news and reviews of e-book singles

The e-book singles format has been a rapidly growing new format, and now it has a website dedicated to monitoring its growth, reviewing content and offering news, interviews and profiles of authors. Thin Reads is the work of the MPA's former head of communications, Howard Polskin, who will act as CEO and editor-in-chief of the new website.

"This is a new form of content, there is no question about," Polskin told me this afternoon. "It's something that is longer than a magazine article and shorter than a book. I call it eBook singles."

Thin Reads also has its own rapidly growing database of more than 700 e-book singles available dating back to 2010, according to the website's launch announcement. The database includes title, publication date, publisher, author, description, length, and retail platform, and tracks e-book singles available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iBookstore.

"Tt's clear that because of mobile devices, the proliferation of mobile devices – like iPhones, smartphones, tablets – that consumer want to buy and access more types of content and eBooks singles are the perfect form of content for a mobile, on-the-go consumer," said Polskin.

Polskin started to get the idea to launch Thin Reads a little over a year ago while attending an MPA conference.

Howard Polskin

"I was in San Francisco meeting with a lot of digital companies for the magazine industry's annual conference and someone said you've got to meet this guy John Tayman who founded this company Byliner devoted to eBook singles. So met him at the Fairmont Hotel and he told me all about this new form of content, because I was thinking I was going to have a panel on this, and thought it was something that magazine publishers might be interested in – it's both a threat and an opportunity for magazines," Polskin said.

"So right before getting on the flight to go home I downloaded a bunch of eBook singles on my Kindle and I was hooked. When I got off the plane I wanted for read more things. So who is telling me what's good, what's a good book?"

"When I left MPA in December it was almost at the exact same time that The New York Times came out with the eBook singles division with their first effort called Snow Fall by John Branch. So I said 'wow, this is the moment in time."

The Thin Reads' database lists more than 700 e-book singles currently on the market and is updated as soon as new e-book singles are released. Among the findings of the database, according to Thin Reads:

• 54% of all e-book singles available in the database are listed as Original, which means they were created especially as short works of non-fiction or fiction intended to be read on an electronic platform for its original release.
• 12% of all e-book singles available in the database are listed as Encore, which means they were originally published or presented previously in another format. 2% of all e-book singles in the database are listed as Encore+, which means that new or updated content was added to a story that was previously published.
• 30% of all e-book singles in the database have not yet been categorized because the information was not available.
• 31% of e-book singles in the database are fiction. 69% are non-fiction. Narrative non-fiction accounted for 20% of all e-book singles in the database.
• More than 150 publishers are releasing content to the e-book single market, according to the findings of the Thin Reads database. Publishers include: The New York Times Company, Penguin, ProPublica, Random House, St. Martin’s Press, Byliner, The Atavist, HarperCollins, American Express Publishing, GQ Magazine, National Geographic Books and TED Conferences.
• Byliner, Penguin and New Word City are among the companies that have published the most e-book singles, with more than 40 titles each.

Polskin said that the site will soon add video and other types of content as it developers over the next year.

Polskin spent eight years at the MPA where he was involved in implementing the organization's name change to MPA--the Association of Magazine Media. Prior to joining the MPA Polskin was V.P., Corporate Communications at Sony, and before that spent over five years as a veep at CNN.

Cable channel HBO issues update to its streaming app HBO GO, update adds AirPlay multitasking capability

The big subscription cable channel HBO has today issued an update for its universal iOS app, HBO GO. The update adds a pretty cool new feature, AirPlay multitasking.

Basically it works like this: before the update you could stream movies and shows from the HBO GO app to an Apple TV, but if you wanted to do anything else with the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad you'd have to stop streaming. Now, the stream won't be ended if you decide to pop open the browser and check out exactly who that actor is you're seeing on the TV.

For most TV cable owners who subscribe to HBO, the idea of streaming programming to their own TV seems rather absurd as HBO offers its own on-demand channel. But if you are traveling and want to stream a movie onto a friend's TV, the app comes in handy. Now it is even better.

Last month HBO's Chief Executive Richard Plepler said that the service may soon offer its content via ISPs, something I'm sure many cable companies would not be happy about. The cost would be an extra $10 or $15 added to the cost of a consumer's Internet fees. "We would have to make the math work," Plepler said, according to Reuters. As more and more consumers decide to cut their TV cable cords, the dream of ala cart pricing for television services seems to be slowing becoming a reality.

Morning Brief: An update on the new tablet magazine InFocus; New York updates its new tablet edition app to fix subscriber download issues; Facebook 'Home'

The managing editor at CustomMade Media Australia, Keith Barrett was kind enough to respond to my post yesterday on their new photography tablet magazine, Infocus Australasia (see original post here which also contains a walk-through video).

The new title uses the Oomph platform to create a native tablet magazine, with (as the TOC states) licensed content from Dennis Publishing. The question that was left open was what was the content being licensed and how much? Barrett was kind enough to fill in the details:

"Yes, we do use licensed content from Dennis, and that amounts to three pieces in each edition – the two ‘Tutorials’, and the ‘Project’," Barrett wrote. "These pieces of copy are generic (it doesn’t matter if you’re in the US, UK on Australia, the anatomy of a DSLR is the same; the same applies to shooting a silhouette or any of our Project pieces). So, we licensed some content that allow us to cover off the basics."

"What that does is allow us to put our editorial budget into genuine, unique, and localised content. This means, as you would know, getting freelancers involved, sourcing photography, and so on."

The new digital magazine is also free of charge – I called that a head scratcher because the magazine is so good.

"Giving this all away for free is a pretty unique approach for any business, but we identified the space on the domestic market for a high-quality, digital magazine in this space," Barrett wrote. "We elected to give it away with the aim of growing it rapidly and therefore need to be confident that we can deliver a product that will be sought out by a variety of people because of the content it contains. We’re confident that it will. Our second edition will have up to three new sections, offering even more for readers."

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New York magazine, which launched a new tablet edition using the Mag+ platform (see original TNM post here), today issued an app update to fix some nagging subscriber download issues.

The app was developed by The Wonderfactory and is very much a change from the original app. The first attempt at a tablet edition produced a stand-alone app with a replica edition inside. The new app is to be found inside the Apple Newsstand and contains two parts: daily, updating news content from the magazine's websites, and a natively designed tablet edition of the magazine.

"I'm just getting with my new New York app but love the new interface and weblike content 'in' my magazine app. Way to go NY Mag! Pushing it!" writes one enthusiastic reader in the their App Store review.

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Facebook rolled out its new "phone" in a much anticipated event yesterday, though what was announced was not so much a phone as a home screen replacement solution. It will be interesting to see whether "Home", to be rolled out beginning April 12, will catch on with loyal Facebook users.

I am not one of "Home's" target users as I avoid Facebook at all costs. But there are millions of Facebook users and because their perspective will be very different from my own I'll avoid any temptation to comment on the new product.

But I will say that it is good to see a company looking at the cell phone is a new way, even if it is self-promoting (oops, I commented on it). The platform has remained static since the introduction of the iPhone more than five years ago and it is about time someone shook things up a bit (a sentiment T-Mobile seems to agree with, as well).

The Weather Channel's innovative mobile advertising; app uses its most valuable real estate for an advertising

It is no secret that I am no fan of paid content strategies that try and minimize the reliance on advertising. For me revenue is revenue and throwing away on revenue channel to rely solely on another seems like a foolish strategy. It's a bit like the guy who puts the pea under the cups and begins moving them around, only this time he openly puts a pea in all three cups then asks you which cup has the pea... and you hesitate to decide which cup to pick.

For many newspapers (and magazines, too) who have launched mobile apps, the general way advertising is handled is to include a banner ad, often from an ad network. It is a lazy way to think about how to monetize one's mobile apps.

The Weather Channel is trying to come up with new ad solutions and one that is being employed today goes a long way in explaining why it recently decided to stop using animated wallpapers in its apps. Those gorgeous looking backgrounds may be missed, but it is obvious TWC thought it was real estate too valuable to simply give away to the designers.

The backgrounds of the page which shows the current temperature is usually the first page the app user sees. Today an ad from The Home Depot is used as the "wallpaper" behind the temperature. The background stays, even when moving from city to city (as you can see at left), but is gone once the user moves on to the 48 hour forecast or ten-day forecast. (The TWC's mobile media kit can be found here.)

This is smart stuff, and should give inventive ad directors something to chew on. What is your most valuable real estate in your app, and can you use it in an nonintrusive way for advertising. If not, then the creation of this kind of page might be the next option.

(By the way, the iPad app for TWC still is using attractive wallpapers, using a more traditional banner ad approach for the advertising.)

Australian Trade Commission releases separate iPhone and iPad apps for 'Australia Unlimited' digital magazine

The Australian Trade Commission recently released twin iOS apps, as well as a website, for Australia Unlimited. The new digital products are, of course, meant to encourage travel and business in Australia.

The new apps Austalia Unlimited for iPhone and Australia Unlimited for iPad are native in design and feature attractive photography within simple layouts designed for easy reading on the owner's device.

Our iPhone and iPad apps, and the website, all showcase the ideas and achievements of our world-class scientists, exporters, designers, educators and entrepreneurs. Australia Unlimited is about Australia's greatest asset - not our beaches or our mines - our people.

The iPad app proved a bit glitchy for me as at first the app reacted as if on a sugar rush and needed to be shut down. I could not duplicate the behavior, but my guess is that the app was probably tested on the newest version of the iPad, while older models, with less memory, may have trouble properly handling the app.

The navigation on my own iPad was extremely sticky, as seen in the screenshot below-right where the screen sticks between stories before eventually proceeding to the next story. I did not see the same behavior on my iPhone 5 with the iPhone app.

The apps and their content are free of charge, as you'd expect, and offers a free subscription. Actually forces a free subscription on you as pressing "cancel" will not stop the app from asking you again to subscribe. An update of the iPad app is probably a good idea to rid the app of bugs.

MLB.com updates its MLB At Bat app one last time before the start of the 2013 season Sunday; newspaper special sections fail to appear inside the App Store

Major League Baseball has a bit of a monopoly when it comes to all things digital: audio and video streams of games are their exclusive property so downloading MLB At Bat, or using the MLB.com website is essential for those of use addicted to the game.

The MLB At Bat app has had its ups and downs. Last year, for instance, I said I had enough of dropped streams, error messages and the like and I cancelled the service. But a late season surge by the Giants – one that would lead to their second World Series win in three years (I love writing that) – convinced me that I couldn't live without the app.

The key to the MLB app has never been its features, MLB.com does a good job of adding more and more goodies. No, the key has been the ability of MLB.com to service the app and to maintain its quality. This year the app has generated few complaints about its quality, and that is a good sign. No, the biggest complaint, which is totally understandable in this economy, is the price.

"I've gotten this app for years, not no more. Everything is going up but my paycheck!" writes one reviewer in the App Store.

Other complaints revolve around issues dedicated fans should already understand like blackouts and audio. The app, after all, works best for those unable to directly follow their favorite teams because they have moved out of the market.

If I were a Cubs fan, for instance, I'd have absolutely no reason to pay for the app's premium features (since I live in Chicago) but might pay the one-time $19.99 fee for the scoreboard and stats.

But complaining about the price probably isn't justified in a world where many fans moan because their favorite team lost a player because they wouldn't pay him what the Dodgers or Yankees were offering.**

In any case, here is what you will find in the last app update to be issued by MLB.com before the start of the season (future updates most likely will involve bug fixes rather than features):

What's New in Version 6.1.0

• Multi-platform live audio access for At Bat 13 subscribers (portable to Mac/PC with a valid MLB.com account)
• Universal support for At Bat 13 subscribers, accessible on iPhone, iPad and other supported smartphones and tablets
• New video section featuring more highlights and search (iPad)
• Sortable batting, pitching and fielding statistics (iPad)
• Re-designed individual team pages (iPhone)
• Updated news section interface (iPhone)
• Classic games library featuring more than 60 historic games dating back to 1952 (iPhone and iPad)
• Re-architected navigations (iPhone and iPad)
• Additional push notification options (iPhone & iPad)
• Closed captioning availability for live video (iPhone and iPad

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In the spring of 2011, I wrote on the few new apps released by newspapers for the start of the new baseball season. The Boston Herald, for instance, launched a baseball app built by DoApp. My only surprise was that there were not more of these kind of apps being produced.

Now, a couple of years later, the absence of new apps for newspaper special sections no longer is a big surprise. The question, though, is why is this? Have newspapers lost the corporate knowledge of how to produce a profitable special section? Is it about their reluctance to embrace app making? Is it because they have lost the loyalty of the the local ad base?

It's probably all these things, or at least some of them. The one thing I'm positive about is that the atmosphere inside most newspapers companies is much different than when I started out in the business.

In L.A., the start of the baseball season meant the annual Dodgers section. While the editorial team at the Herald Examiner felt they were the ones driving the section, us ad guys felt we were the ones driving the ship. We'd have a giant sales meeting, sometimes with Tommy Lasorda giving the motivational sales speech, the peanut vendors would come in to throw bags of peanuts at us, and the management team would finally give out ridiculous sales goals that we somehow always made.

The sections almost sold themselves: we knew which of our clients were Dodger fans and would automatically buy an ad. The big auto dealer would get the back page - to not give it to them would be suicide. Even some of my real estate clients (new home developers) would sometimes advertise.

Today, print special sections at the start of the season still exist, but they are waning. As for digital media special sections, well, the corporate folks who run newspapers today still aren't there.

I could criticize them for their lack of imagination, but I know that the same relationship we had with our advertisers doesn't exist today. Could a special section tablet app for the Dodgers bring in $250,000 or more in ads today? I doubt it. (The one Dodgers app out there was build by a Chinese app developer trying to take advantage of things by launching paid sports apps. Users think they are a rip-off, and they are.)

Some papers such as the two Chicago dailies have launched sports tablet magazines for their teams. But the Tribune Company has apparently given up on them already, after only one year. Right now the real effort being spent trying to figure out a way to sell off their newspapers – digital special sections will have to wait for another publisher.

** Actually, it might Dodger fans complaining after word came out this afternoon that the Giants have locked up their catcher, Buster Posey, with a long contract – 9 years, $167 million.

Morning Brief: NY Magazine to dump PDF replica approach for an updated app that combines free and paid content; banks open in Cyprus after nearly two weeks; BlackBerry reports better earnings, lower revenue

Digiday this morning is reporting that New York magazine will have an update to its iPad app issued soon that will change the app from its current replica edition version now to an app containing both free content and the digital magazine. The app was designed by The Wonderfactory using the Mag+ platform.

“We wanted to have a richer magazine experience, and a PDF didn’t make sense,” Michael Silberman, NY Mag’s digital general manager told Digiday.

With the update to NEW YORK Magazine daily stories will be available for free, with the more than a dozen stories available inside the app for five days.

Gregg Hano, CEO of Mag+, called the new app "a great example of using touchscreen publishing inventively.”

Although the app update has not been released yet (it's due in the store April 1st I'm told), it sounds like the magazine will take a hybrid approach to the tablet edition, where the advertising will appear as in print unless creative is swapped out by the agency or client, and the editorial content will be reformatted for the tablet. This is the approach most major publishers have been taking since it both adheres to circulation auditing guidelines and meets the minimum expectation of most tablet magazine readers.

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Banks have reopened in Cyprus today with conflicting reports on the crowds lining up at their local bank. Reuters says crowds have been calm after having to wait nearly two weeks to gain access to their accounts.

"I feel a sense of fear and disappointment having to queue up like this; it feels like a Third World country, but what can you do?" said on pensioner.

Capital controls, though, remain in place, as the government attempts to stem the flow of capital out of the country. All commercial transactions of over €5,000 will be reviewed, and those leaving the island will not be allowed to carry over €1,000 with them.

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BlackBerry reported better earnings this morning, showing a quarterly profit of $98 million versus a $125 million loss in the same quarter last year. Revenue was down, however, to $2.7 billion, a 2 percent decline from the previous quarter and 36 percent decline on the same quarter in 2012.

"We have implemented numerous changes at BlackBerry over the past year and those changes have resulted in the company returning to profitability in the fourth quarter," said Thorsten Heins, president and CEO of BlackBerry.

BlackBerry recently launched the Z10 in the AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon networks, and the company said demand has been "better than expected."

"With the launch of BlackBerry 10, we have introduced the newest and what we believe to be the most innovative mobile computing platform in the market today. Customers love the device and the user experience, and our teams and partners are now focused on getting those devices into the hands of BlackBerry consumer and enterprise customers," Heins said in the company's earnings statement.

Despite the optimism, the company reported that it had lost 3 million subscribers in the period, bringing its total base of platform users to 76 million.

Media app updates: BBC adds portrait to iPad version of its news app; Weather Channel updates iPhone app

The Beeb has issued a major update to its universal iOS news app. The stand-alone BBC News app has added new features and customization that should prove important to users (though we here in the U.S. would love to see the whole issue of the BBC iPlayer resolved so that we can start using a fully functional app rather than settle for what the cable companies will allow).

The app update adds a new portrait orientation for the iPad, as well as a new edit button which allows users to add, remove or re-order categories.

The update also changes the design of the iPhone version, increasing the size of the images inside the app. Users can also refresh by pulling down on the app.

Going back to the iPlayer situation: with the BBC America channel on so many cable systems, the Beeb has found that it has to make a choice between its TV channel and launching its iPlayer on these shores.

"The United States is a very complex media market. Currently, we have one very successful cable channel in BBC America, and we’re looking into what options we have to roll out additional platforms in that country," Tessa Matchett, BBC’s Head of Communications for Global iPlayer, said last fall.

Meanwhile, the BBC executive responsible for the iPlayer, Daniel Danker, has jumped ship to Shazam – yep, that app that identifies music. If anything says "rats fleeing the ship" that has to be it.

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The Weather Channel seems to love issuing updates to its apps. There are few media properties, other than Twitter I suppose, that issues as many.

This afternoon's iPhone app update does not add back in the animated wallpaper that was so attractive, but was a memory hog. But this is what users will see new:

What's New in Version 5.3.0
- Improved 15-minute forecasts within your Hourly view
- EXPECT RAIN tab on your Now screen. If snow, rain or thunderstorms start or change in the next 6 hours the EXPECT RAIN tab appears to let you know
- Cleaner design for faster navigation to your live radar and maps, the latest videos, and local pollen levels
- New video player with enhanced viewing experience
- Bug fixes and performance enhancements
- Improved severe weather alerts

Last afternoon odds & ends: Beware the Windows phone; the bootlegged magazine and its source; Hearst gets aggressive with merchandising, Esquire sends an email

There is nothing quite the afternoon trip to Best Buy to get you thinking about things – like 'how is it these sell anything since they seem to know so little about the products they sell?' Then there are the little surprises that get you thinking 'hey, I didn't know that.'

Playing around with a Windows phone I was impressed by how fast it felt. Then I opened up the browser and started to sug the web a bit. The speed was not as impressive, but that probably had more to do with Best Buy's WiFi than anything else. I even looked at this site on the phone. Pinch to zoom was fast, and the site looked pretty good, and... hey, wait a minute! I shouldn't be seeing my site, why aren't I seeing the mobile website?

I checked out several sites that I knew had mobile sites and each case the desktop version showed up.

So off to the Android phones to just check it everything looked right. The Best Buy guy took me over to some Samsung phones, then stumbled around as he tried to pull up the browser. Yep, everything looks as it should, I suppose. The display on the Samsung phones didn't seem as sharp and attractive as the Windows phone, but at least it was the right websites I was looking at.

In the early days of the web is was common to feel that your website would have to be tested on every OS and every computer you could find to make sure everything was right. Today we sometimes assume this is no longer necessary. With Windows phone sales rather modest this may still be true, but if they can actually start selling some of those things...

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A TNM reader that recently launched a digital magazine using a platform usually associated with replicas because it involves uploading PDFs reports finding their magazine bootlegged already, and not on just one website but several.

I joked about this a bit, after all, I guess it is a sign that someone is interested in your title.

But it got me thinking that I seemed strange that it would show up in multiple locations. Are bootlegged magazines, downloadable in PDF form, being grabbed by these sites from each other, or are they targeting the digital newsstands known for digital magazines easily convertible into PDFs? (You really can't do this to an interactive or natively designed magazine because much of the material, and often the actual copy would be missing.)

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Hearst Magazines have been busy trying to find new ways to monetize their brands, whether through merchandizing efforts, through retail partnerships, or brand extensions like the Esquire Network.

Some media observers have, showing their youth, written that this is all something new. In fact, many publishes, especially B2B publishers, initially thought the web would their way to start getting a bite out of every sale. I can't tell you how many publishers told me, back in the nineties, that their plan was to try and move products directly through their websites and break off one or two percent of the sale for themselves. It didn't happen, but it only goes to show that maybe we weren't thinking big enough (after all, Apple is now getting 30 percent of the sale on magazine subscriptions inside its Newsstand).

The GIF at right (click to enlarge) is an example of what Esquire is doing with one of its customers. The email promotion went out today and clicking on the link takes you directly to the retailers site – where, I might, add you are greeted as an Esquire reader (I'm not, but clearly they have my email address).

Hearst appears to be getting aggressive about their merchandizing and it makes perfect sense. I'd like to see them as aggressive in other areas such as creating new, interesting digital publications that are offshoots of their main titles. But this is a start.

Condé Nast France releases its version of Glamour, one of many editions to be found inside Apple's Newsstand

One of the wonderful things about digital newsstand is the ability to find new titles, including international magazines. One of the promises of digital formats is that one day those international titles will come with good, accurate translation services. But I am probably to have to wait a while for that.

The downside of digital newsstand, however, is glut. Browsing and searching for new periodicals to read is difficult, almost impossible in the Apple App Store. Some digital newsstands are better than others, but they all come down to something rather simple: the depth of the categories used when publishers submit their apps (or files) to the newsstand.

Because of this, the newsstands are often a bit of a mess. This situation becomes a bit of a problem when a publisher owns multiple versions of their own title.

Take the new app for Glamour from Condé Nast – or more accurately, the newly released app GLAMOUR MAGAZINE FRANCE from Condé Nast Digital France. The French version of the popular magazine title is now the seventh version of Glamour available inside Apple's Newsstand. The scary thing is that I am quite sure I could have missed a couple versions, too. After all, not all magazines are published under the same name in an international market. For instance, the Greek version of Marie Claire, a magazine published by Hearst in the U.S., is called ΜΟΥΣΑ (Mousa) in Greece (see their excellent second iPad app here).

The new French version of Glamour appears to be a replica edition as the cover used inside the app description still has the bar code on the cover. But each version is somewhat different in app design, devices and pricing. Some replica editions are universal apps, while others are not.

Here is the breakdown of Glamour inside the Apple Newsstand:

While some may think this is good news for readers, and there certainly are some upsides (after all, does your local Barnes & Noble carry the Italian version of Glamour?), the fact is that the situation is also leading to mass confusion and much dissatisfaction with digital editions, in general.

Readers just looking at the app icons certainly will have a difficult time differentiating one edition from another. But there are bigger problems such as understanding which tablet editions are interactive and which are replicas. Even language is an issue: the app Revista Glamour Brasil lists English as its language inside the U.S. App Store (it is listed as "Inglês" in the Brazil store) – the actual magazine is most certainly in Portuguese.

Morning Brief: Flipboard issues major update to bring app to version 2.0; update allows users to share their own aggregated 'magazines'

Late yesterday afternoon Flipboard issued an update to its popular iOS app, bringing the app up top version 2.0. (The app in Google Play was recently updated bringing it up to version 1.9.27.)

First, what's new in version 2.0:

★ You can now collect and save content into your own magazines, tap the new “+” button to get started.
★ Your magazines are public, but can be made private (viewable only to you).
★ Use the new bookmarklet to add items to your magazines from your browser.
★ Get Flipboard notifications when people like, comment or subscribe to your magazines.
★ Easily email or share magazines to Facebook, Twitter, G+, etc
★ Personalized recommendations for more to add to your Flipboard.
✓ Search is now front and center on your Flipboard, with new improved results.
✓ Faster page-loading and faster flipping performance.

The big change here is that Flipboard has it made it easier to create, and share your own aggregated "magazines" – and part of the fun of the product is seeing what other users have come up with.

Flipboard is terribly popular, and this update will only make it more so for among its current users and those who buy their first tablets, with the company claiming some 50 million users (though that can not be substantiated as downloads do not equate to regular users). The company has also been able to raise some $60 million in capital from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures and others, while attempting to find a way to monetize its audience in a way that can justify the investors faith in the company.

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One of the biggest problems Flipboard faces is that there is no barrier to entry to its market. While Flipboard was among the first content aggregation apps launched for the iPad, it now finds that other companies such as Zite, Google, AOL and others have launched their own versions of Flipboard, each with a different take on the basic concept.

But Flipboard is undeniably the leader, and its ability to continually update and improve its product should protect it somewhat from its competitors. But my first thoughts on the product, written in this long post in July of 2010 still seem somewhat valid.

I suppose my own feelings about Flipboard are influenced by the idea that what the app creates can be called a "magazine". The thinking goes like this: these Flipboard "magazines" are in fact "magazines" because an "editor" (the reader) has gathered together the content. But to think this is all a magazine editor does would be to think that the editor of Time, Esquire or Vogue sees their job as simply piecing together what copy happens to fall on their desk. (I have a feeling more than a few journalists actually do see things this way.)

Besides, you know, actually editing copy, editors also drive the content creation process, not merely organize it. So these Flipboard "magazines" are not really magazines at all, but what they were to begin with: very nice looking collections of aggregated content – some organized well and with good logic behind them, others not so much.

But if readers and Flipboard want to call them magazines that's fine with me. That reporters would call them magazines, though, either reeks of press release regurgitation, or a profound misunderstanding of what defines a magazine. No doubt the idea of the magazine has been corrupted by the use of the term to describe certain television programs.

(Could a future update to Flipboard or some other similar app actually build in the story assignment process? Just a thought.)

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So is Flipboard a danger to the magazine industry? Sure. (My God, what isn't a threat to the industry today?)

Every day nearly a dozen or more new digital magazines, or tablet editions (replica and new publications), are introduced into the Apple Newsstand. With this volume of titles, it is tempting to believe that readers would prefer to use only one app that can collect stories from "out there" and create a friendly, personalized publication.

But not all readers of magazines and newspapers want to be their own editors. Just as there are those TV viewers who will record their favorite shows then watch them in a newly configured lineup in an evening, the vast majority of viewers still turn on their TVs and sit back and enjoy (or not) whatever is available at that time.

Flipboard's update makes the app more attractive, more social, and more interesting – that is for sure. But the app still calls on readers to work to discover the content - and with more content that job is getting even harder, not easier. Flipboard makes organizing and displaying content easier, does it make discovering that content easier? (Yes, a bit. I'll admit.)

For me, the fun of the new Flipboard won't be that I will want to create my own magazines – though I can see where that might be an interesting way for magazine titles to try and repurpose archived material (though this seems a terrible use of that material when creating you own apps and special issues would present better circulation revenue and advertising opportunities). No, the fun will be in seeing what others create. Again, find the best editors and follow them rather than believe I know best. Three examples of this can be seen above in the animated GIF.

With millions of users, it is obvious that the media will have to continue to be leery of Flipboard and similar products. But Flipboard is hardly the new Google. It remains a popular reading app, and the undeniable leader. It is also getting better and better, and version 2.0 is certainly a major leap forward. I have a feeling that is will use Flipboard about as often as I did in the past – that is, not very often. But I recognize that the app has loyal users, and the update should be appreciated and make the app even more valuable for them.

Reader's Mobile launched by Tablazines: searching for the perfect digital publishing solution, and sometimes using what simply works

One of the nearly dozen new tablet editions released today comes from a familiar source: Tablazines, the publisher of the digital magazines Hoodgrown and Maybach. Chris English, who is Tablazines, has been probably this site's most loyal reader going back pretty much to the beginning.

It would not be a stretch to say that this site is almost tailored for a reader such as English – someone with a print background looking for the perfect publishing solution to launch his tablet magazines. Why Adobe, Mag+, Quark or whoever doesn't just fund this guy and make it easy for him to launch his magazines is one of the great mysteries of this business.

English's newest digital magazine came as a bit of a surprise to me as he hadn't mentioned it to me in advance. I suppose he feared I would rip it a new one, or something, or its lack of interactivity.

Reader's Mobile was released through the Magzter digital newsstand and made its way to the Apple Newsstand through that Indian based vendor. Reader's Mobile is neither a replica edition, since no print edition exists, nor is it an interactive magazine. In fact, RM is what a lot of citizen publishers have been releasing: something that approximates a print magazine, but is digital.

These types of basically-PDF magazines have been released every week by first time publishers using a variety of digital publishing solutions such as Magcast. Most are pretty awful – not because there is no interactivity, but because they are produced by would-be publishers without any background in print, or the web – or design, in general.

Often these digital magazines are confused with replica editions because of their lack of native app features. But any digital magazine, if it is designed specifically for the device it is to be read on is native. What differentiates English's new title from others is that he can design a page, making sure the fonts are right, the leading is correct, and that there is the appropriate use of white space.

(What would a digital magazine look like it designed by someone more comfortable with the web? Look  no further than Marco Arment's The Magazine, which some techies feel is their idea of the perfect digital magazine, but that print and tablet designers dismiss as too minimal. It, too, is a "native" tablet edition.)

Because the solution used, though, is Magzter, the app still has some issues, despite its good design work. The app universal, so the digital magazine can only be considered native in the its iPad version, in portrait. In portrait, seen in the screenshots below, the page fits, the fonts are right and the result is a readable digital publication. Everything else, iPad in landscape, or any of the iPhone variations, are a replica of the iPad edition as seen in portrait. (Got it?)

The other issue is that appears under the Magzter name, rather than under English's own Tablazine developer account name.

Left: the library page, unique to Magzter; Middle: the TOC is very print magazine like, rather than more native to a digital format; Right: the publisher's column and masthead – again, mimicking print.

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What makes a would-be tablet publisher like myself sad is not that the native digital publishing solution providers are not making it easier for us to publish launch our new publishing companies - they are trying to make a go at new businesses themselves, in many cases – but that those that have the most to gain have not launched affordable solutions. I'm talking about Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft here.

As a result, would-be publishers are forced to search far and wide for acceptable ways to get their digital publishing efforts off the ground.

One of the vendors that has created its own digital newsstand and launched hundreds of digital magazines into the Apple Newsstand is Magzter. Their apps are stable, and by launching a digital magazine into their newsstand, now becomes accessible to thousands upon thousands of new readers. The Magzter newsstand is filled with lots of titles, many of them Indiana magazines, and the vast majority of them replicas of the print edition.

For a print publisher, one that has already paid for the production of their print magazine, the decision to include their title in a digital newsstand like Magzter's is about incremental revenue. Magzter, you see, takes half of the revenue generated by a sale. If the sale takes place in the Apple Newsstand, that means that they take half of what is left over after Apple gets its 30 percent. For a print publisher trying to make their quarterly numbers, the incremental pennies earned may help them out. But if you are a digital-only publisher, the idea of sustaining a publishing business where potentially 65 percent of all your revenue is going to the newsstand owners is hardly a winning business model.

That's why digital publishers are constantly looking for the next great digital publishing platform.

Auto Trader (UK) launches 'ignition' – an interactive digital magazine built using the FutureFolio publishing platform

This new native digital magazine, ignition, comes from the UK magazine Auto Trader, not to be confused with the U.S. company of the same name owned by Cox Enterprises and the PE firm Providence Equity Partners.

For the British company, this is the first app to be released into the Apple App Store under its own developer account – and it's quite an app, indeed.

Built using the digital publishing platform from Future plc, FutureFolio, ignition is a unique and innovative attempt at presenting a digital publication that has, at its heart, the mission of selling used cars. Readers simply interested in the autos featured here may not even bother to tap on the icon that takes them out of the app and to the Auto Trader website to browse the autos for sale. Others will find that to be the best feature.

The Newsstand app may have just been released yesterday, but there are already five issues inside the app's library to download. Single issues are priced £2.99 ($4.99 in the U.S), while a monthly subscription is priced at £1.99, and 3 months subscription at £3.99. The app is universal, but I think the presentation is best seen on the iPad.

The navigation is slightly irregular in that returning to the main menu involves tapping a button at the bottom-left of the page within the digital issue, rather than double tapping the page. Once you are aware of this there are no other problems I encountered with the app itself.

The digital issues are designed to be read in portrait only, which saves a bit of file size. The issue I downloaded, that latest, weighed in at 264 MB, with most of the heft taken up by the videos and photo galleries.

When you consider the two tablet editions I looked at today – ΜΟΥΣΑ #2 (TNM post here) and now ignition – you might get the impression that European publishers are way ahead of their American colleagues when it comes to building interactive tablet magazines. But Europe is releasing more than its fair share of replica editions, as well. But the work coming out of some publishers is definitely excellent, and definitely well ahead of many American companies. If I ran Classified Ventures, for instance, I certainly would be paying attention to what is going on across the pond.

Sync Magazine: New weekly digital-only magazine from the UK aims 'to document the connected society'

I'm not sure what to make of this new digital magazine. Is it a big promotional effort, or an honest attempt to create a new weekly digital magazine? We'll find out in the weeks to come.

Sync Magazine is from Gadabout Productions Ltd., a UK-based independent film production company. The editor is Guy Daniels, Managing Director at Gadabout, and someone who once worked at EMAP before moving into the film business.

The new digital-only magazine is quite ambitious. For one thing, it plans on a weekly publication schedule. For another, it's app description lays out a rather precise set of objectives:

Sync is the weekly video magazine for the connected society. It is produced for all those working in – or interested in – communications technologies, services and applications. Whether you have a direct interest in telecoms, wireless, broadband or internet, or an indirect interest through verticals such as healthcare, education, finance, transport, social and so on…. we hope Sync becomes your weekly guide to the Connected Society...

Sync is only available as a digital publication for smart devices – optimised for both the iPhone and iPad. There’s no print alternative. We live in a digital world, and the format of Sync reflects this.

Sync is written and produced by specialist telecoms journalists and reporters, with decades of experience in this sector. We are a small, independent team with no affiliations to telecoms vendors or service providers. Our aim is to document the connected society, and help those who seek to provide services that will benefit society.

Sync stands for a smarter world. We want smart cities, intelligent communities and integrated transport. We respect freedom of speech and the need for a free internet. We encourage open standards and a more enlightened approach to patent licensing.

With so ambitious a mission I think it best to withhold judgement while the magazine gets its publishing underway.

The universal iOS app contains one issue plus a sample of that issue. To access the full premiere issue will cost $2.99. Subscriptions are available in 6 month ($59.99) and 1 year increments ($89.99). The publisher may find that readers would prefer a lower priced e month level, as well. This is quite pricey for an unknown digital launch, though I can not fault them for pricing the digital magazine levels that they feel are fair.

(It should be noted, though, that the app descriptions do not list prices for the digital magazine, that is sure to draw some bitter reader reviews unless corrected.)

The app description links to a new website that is set to launch on Friday, so the appearance of this app inside the Apple Newstand probably was one day earlier – but better early than late, right?

Thomson Reuters releases new universal news app, likely replacement for older separate apps for iPhone and iPad

Thomson Reuters released a brand new universal iOS app for Reuters today. Simply called Reuters, the free app gives readers access to Reuters news without charge. The app appears to be a replacement for the separate Reuters News Pro apps from iPhone and iPad.

Thomson Reuters launched its original iPad news app when the original iPad was released by Apple. But the app has not been updated since September 5 of last year, which probably means this app was already in development.

The iPad version of the new app uses exceptionally large fonts and plenty of leading. It makes for an easy reading experience for tired eyes, even if it is not a terribly good use of space. But I seriously doubt readers will complain – the app is attractive, easy to use, and certainly priced right.

The iPhone version's fonts are not as obviously big, and the leading seems very appropriate. One wonders if the app was designed first for the iPhone, then ported over to the iPad.

The app lacks font size adjustments, which might have been a good feature. But there are sharing options through Facebook, Twitter and email, as well as a button for saving the stories for later reading.

The app comes with sections for World, Politics, Business, Tech and Market News, as well as Home, which serves as the front page. The app also allows for searching the news.

There is two important features missing, however: push notifications and geo-location services – both I would consider pretty much de rigueur these days. Hopefully updates to the app will add these features to what is a pretty good, if conservative, news app.

London-based magazine media association FIPP launches universal app for 'Magazine World'

It is a sad fact that both magazine and newspaper trade associations, as well as their support trade media magazines, have lagged behind in digital media – sometimes embarrassingly so. Here in the U.S., none of the major trade associations or the industry trade magazines have launched native tablet editions, and most that expended the minimum amount of effort to launch a replica have done so by allowing their vendor to sell the resulting app under their name rather than the publisher's.

As a result, there is a real schism opening up in the publishing world: on the one side are those who believe that everything starts with the print title, then to make a digital publication all one needs to is create an app; on the other side are those who believe that each digital platform requires its own design work. A majority of print publishers, and apparently their associations and trade industry media publications, believe that once a print publication is digitized it is a tablet magazine or a mobile magazine, enhancements are not necessary but are nice. The other side sees these publishing efforts as merely the digitization of print, like scanning a story from a magazine, the scan does not become a digital magazine, it is merely a scan.

There is, of course, lots of middle ground.

I know that I am very much in the minority in my view that tablet and mobile publishing should be looked at not as extensions of print, but as unique platforms – just as television is not merely radio with enhancements. A vast majority of new tablet editions released each week, for instance, show that most publishers believe that readers will want their print magazines in digital form exactly as in print, even if that means reducing them down to three and half or four inch screens. No or few alterations or accommodations are necessary because digital devices are merely ways of presenting the same content on a screen (hence, why Flash flipbooks exist).

I know of no digital-only publishers who hold this view that is so dominate in the print world. When I speak to a digital-only publisher it is as if they are in an entirely different industry than the print publisher also launching their magazine into the same digital newsstand.

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It is not surprising, therefore, that one would see FIPP launch its own publication Magazine World as a replica edition. The new universal app, also called Magazine World, appears under the vendor's name in the App Store, Stonewash DD&AD Ltd.

The decision to use Stonewash was rather preordained: the previous publishing director of FIPP is now the co-founder of Stonewash, Daniel Sharp – and Sharp is pretty convinced that replica editions will be the way publishers will want to present their magazines on tablets: "We now look forward to working closely with FIPP's editorial team to ensure their magazine app becomes a state-of-the-art example of how to put a magazine on tablet format," Sharp is quoted as saying in the latest issue of Magazine World.
Left: Typical editorial pages, still as seen in print; Middle: an ad for the digital publishing vendor, Stonewash, with a video embedded; Right: news page with the text version of the story shown

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The Stonewash app is a very nice, as they go. The digital magazine itself is pretty much unreadable without the required pinch-to-zoom, of course, so to compensate the app gives readers the option to pull up a text version of each story, essentially creating an instant Kindle Edition.

I've spoken to many publishers who believe this is the perfect solution: readers get to see the original layouts that exist in print, but then will probably choose to read the text versions of stories because the fonts will be bigger, or in this case, even adjustable.

But to buy into this vision of digital publishing one really has to believe that the future of digital is actually print. Because without the print product, the whole structure of the app goes away and all that is left is a Kindle Edition.

But after three years I guess I'm getting tired of the fight. There are simply too many vendors out there, with too much money chasing print publishers, to win this war. I now admit that replicas will win the day. Now, if you don't mind, I need to tell some of those tablet-only publishers how wrong they are to be designing specifically for the iPad and other tablets.

Read More >

Rumble begins to sign up local and regional newspapers for their identical free mobile and tablet apps. sold under the vendor's name

Last year in November the app developer Rumble announced that it had secured $1 million in investment and had created seven positions in sales and marketing.

Now the Philadelphia and Tel-Aviv is selling its app solutions to small newspaper publishers in Pennsylvania and the Southeast. "Sell" might be the wrong word, as the company has managed to launch 38 identical mobile/tablet apps into the Apple App Store in a very short time.

One of the newest is for the Tuscaloosa News, a Halifax Media Group newspaper. Tuscaloosa News is a universal app like the others, and other than the paper's flag at the top is identical all the other apps from Rumble.

Each of the apps coming from the developer is sold under the Rumble News Ltd. name, rather than either the publisher or newspaper property. Each app is designed absolutely like the others, with a the typical RSS feed design apparent in the mobile apps, and a Flipboard-OnSwipe like layout for the iPad version.

Inside, each story has the same layout and even includes the Rumble logo on top of the story. This appears to be a mistake as other similar apps, such as for the Philadelphia Weekly, show the paper's logo on top of each story. Why the logo must appear is an odd design choice, but it is consistent.

Each of the apps offers the content free of charge, and none seemed to feature any in-app advertising – though it was impossible to look at every single app released so far.

Why would so many newspapers sign up with the same developer to launch identical apps? Why would a newspaper publisher allow their apps to appear under the name of the developer rather than their own? The answer should be very predictable: free.

Rumble is offering its apps free of charge to newspaper publishers, even getting the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association to endorse the company's efforts. In fact, the developer lists several state newspaper associations as partners on its website.

I would have to guess that the goal here is to build up an ad network, or else to begin charging publishers a year from now, after the publishers have become comfortable with the apps and do not build their own to replace them.

As mobile apps the Rumble apps are standard stuff: RSS feeds provide the content to the news sections. There are a minimal amount of features presented one of which is Personal Channels: press the tab takes you to what looks like a Twitter feed. The first person at the top is Al Azoulay – who is he, he's the CEO of Rumble.

As all the apps are brand new there are few reader reviews to be found except on one app, New Pittsburgh Courier. That app is the only app that I could find that had any reviews, and they are all positive, which I found a bit odd. Looking at the reviews most have only reviewed one app ever, and it was this Rumble app. Searching for more information on this new developer and all the apps being released I found a press release on the company and, lo and behold, one of the read reviews was used in it. Odd, no? (There are no reviews for the apps inside Google Play, either, except for one anonymous 5-star rating for the same new Pittsburgh Courier app. In Google Play all the apps also appear under Rumble's name rather than the publisher's.)

I attempted to contact the company by calling the number listed on the website. The call was answered automatically with the message that the Google Voice user was not available, no company was mentioned. I wanted to know exactly how monetization would work and what the company plans to charge its new newspaper clients after the one year of free service. That, I guess, will have to wait – efforts to reach several newspaper executives were fruitless, with several papers listing wrong phone numbers and extensions on their websites.