Week in Review

Short reads on a Saturday morning:

• Poynter got a sneak preview of the new IBM Media & Entertainment Group study which concludes that the online newspaper audience is declining while older readers are finally discovering social media. I'll wait until I see the actual study to draw any real conclusions, but I must admit one thing stands out immediately: the claim that newspapers can expect further declines in readership online. This claim, it seems to me, is based on the assumption that newspapers will continue to make the same mistakes they are now -- organizing their new online as they would in print.

For instance, look at the round-up of tablet rumors below. Each story comes from many different sources, yet much of this material can be found either here at TNM or at MacRumors or sites like that -- all sites not considered a newspaper site. In other words, once newspapers editors understand that they need to be aggregating news as well as producing original news, then many online readers will stick with their newspaper branded sites.

• Tablet rumor round-up (last week!):

Apple was apparently hard at work talking to book publishers in order to get them lined up for their new device.  This story has them taking to McGraw-Hill and Hachette, while this one has them talking to HarperCollins.

The WSJ wrote that "Steve Jobs's Tablet Device Looks to Repackage TV, Magazines, Just as iPod Changed Music Sales". We'll see about that. But as The Mac Observer wrote the last thing the traditional publishers should be worried about is Apple entering the market -- they should be looking forward to it. My guess is that a few newspaper companies, including the NYT are making sure their content is available on Day One. The question is: in what form?

Rumors continue about the fabled tablet's specs, but the general consensus seems to be that it will look like the rendering above.

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Photoblogging Friday - 3

It's Friday already. That was quick. Nothing much happened this short week did it? . . . let's see, a Republican was elected Senator from Massachusetts (wot?), the Supreme Court said corporations can not have their political contributions limited (because to old men in robes speech and money are the same thing, right?), and Haiti had another earthquake (enough already). Maybe Friday didn't come fast enough.

But next week, ah, next week will be interesting. Wednesday will either be the most important day in publishing so far this century, or a major letdown, as Steve Jobs stands on stage to introduce Apple's tablet. My suggestion: don't judge the importance of the event right away. I remember being saddened by Apple's MacWorld 2007 announcement that it was entering the cell phone business (boring! Give me a new MacBook Pro!). Well, I was wrong. And so many prognosticators next week will be wrong, as well.

And next Friday I predict another episode of Photoblogging Friday.

This week I was tempted to shy away from the abstract photography we've posted so far and go with some schmaltzy shot of a kid with his ice cream cone, or something else that would bring in the traffic. But Dean Brierly, of Photographers Speak, sent me a couple of photos for me to choose from his friend, and fellow Chip, David Karamian.  Dean and I both like jazz so this one was the obvious choice.

The photo was taken at Papa Joe's Jazzlokal, Köln, and to give you a flavor of the place I've included a picture of the man himself, Papa Joe. If you click on his image you will be magically transported to Germany through the power of the Internet. Isn't New Media wonderful. Happy Friday.

The Mac Observer: "Can the Publishing Industry Save Itself From Apple Saving the Publishing Industry?

Bryan Chaffin, executive vice president of The Mac Observer, and the writer of The Back Page feature, wrote a great piece today about the Apple tablet and the publishing industry. You should read the whole piece, it is both funny and on target.

Here is a good sized excerpt, reproduced with permission of the author:

. . .  Rumor has it that Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants to save the newspaper and magazine the same way Apple saved the labels (and in the process make several new fortunes selling the devices that will be part of the saving formula).

I buy into that particular rumor for two reasons. The first is that I think Mr. Jobs has the kind of hubris (and track record) to think he can be that savior, and the second is that newspapers need saving.

Unlike the record labels, newspapers don't appear to be run by idiots, but they do need help adjusting to the changes the Internet has wrought on their business models. From Craigslist to access-everywhere-to-everything, to the lower barrier to entry for new media to enter the market, newspapers have faced dramatically decreasing revenues.

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Considering using a vendor for off-the-shelf iPhone app development? Go it alone approach may still be best

For the past two weeks I've been working on a post comparing the many iPhone developers that have launched web based iPhone app development tools for publishers. After two weeks of trying out different vendors approaches I came to one conclusion: if you are serious about mobile do it yourself.

That's not to say that the door is closed to the off-the-shelf approach. Several companies have come up with easy to use interfaces that makes creating a simple RSS driven apps a breeze. And prices seem to fall into a small range: $199 to $499.

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☜  The TNM iPhone as built by Appmakr.

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The key is that you can not build an app with one of these vendors and charge for the app on the iTunes store. In order to put a price on your app you must be part of the Apple developer program. The good news is that this is very easy, simply go here, fill out the necessary pixel work and pay the fee. This now gives you the freedom to develop and launch your own app free from the constraints of these vendors, or, conversely with an outside vendor.

On the other hand, if you have no intention to charge then an off-the-shelf solution might work. So what's the variables you will see in prices? Are you hosting the content? If the app is simply going to bring in content from your RSS feeds then hosting costs will be eliminated. Plan on including advertising? Well if you want to use Admob, a popular option, then the price goes up a bit. If you will allow the vendor to place ads then the cost goes down.

My advice, though, is simple: don't give up your brand, don't surrender your revenue options, and give yourself as much flexibility as possible.

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Short reads: a word of warning; bloggers fill in the gaps in coverage; Condé Nast declares iPhone app a success

Arnon Mishkin has a column on paidContent.org that expresses optimism over Apple tablet, but warns "content creators and audience aggregators should be careful about how they deal with the e-readers or it could turn into primarily a bonanza for Apple, as the Kindle may be primarily a bonanza for Amazon."

. . . Sister site CitizenPublishing.net finds new content and good writers in the world of soccer -- um, make that football. CP interviews blogger Richard Farley, who himself interviews blogger Brian Quarstad about the world of soccer blogging as they fill in the gaps created by a lack of coverage by the mainstream media.

. . . Condé Nast declares its GQ iPhone app a success, bringing in $39K in its first month. Strange, didn't Business Insider declare the app a failure (after only a day).

. . . Publishing people generally don't like to talk online about their business until someone is let go or resigns -- then the knives come out. Now it's Farrar's time.

. . . Google reported  revenues of $6.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, representing a 17% increase over fourth quarter 2008.  Total revenue from Google sites, subtracting out other owned properties, rose 16%. For those about to start work on their taxes you might like to know that Google's effective tax rate was reported as 23%.

Is this the end of the B2B magazine industry, or only the end of the large debt, private equity model?

A strange sense of deja vu overwhelmed me as I read yesterday that Greg Farrar, CEO of Nielsen Business Media would be leaving the company. Folio: reported that Andy Bilbao, senior vice president of brand media, will be taking over while the company evaluates strategic alternatives.

"Strategic alternatives"?  Sounds a bit like Reed's announcement of the departure of CEO Tad Smith, doesn't it?  Like Reed's decision to get out of Dodge, Nielsen is looking to exit the market, fast. 

So is this the end of B2B magazine publishing in America? If the nation's two biggest trade publishers, Reed and Nielsen, want out, who will be left? Cygnus? Questex? (OK, bad joke.) McGraw-Hill, the company where I entered the B2B media industry, is slowly exiting the publications game -- having sold Business Week to Bloomberg, and having watched Hanley-Wood take from Arch Record the official designation from the AIA, what's left? Wither ENR?

And talk about piling on: Gordon T. Hughes II announced Wednesday that he will leaving his post as president-CEO of American Business Media in July. The announcement was not entirely unexpected as Hughes had been with the organization for 16 years. But when asked recently if magazines were going to be "obsolete" Hughes responded "This is where we are going."

It is simply not true that business people will no longer be in need of business intelligence, is it?. The trade press industry will go on surely.

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