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Short reads on a Saturday morning:
• If you were heavily in the stock market I am sure you are glad this week is over. The market didn't suffer a ten minute meltdown like last week, but it wasn't exactly an encouraging week.
• Although it did not seem to make much othis splash, but this week was the launch of the Vanity Fair iPad app – a step forward by Condé Nast in adapting their magazines to the tablet platform.
The app is basically two magazines in one: the landscape mode is an almost exact copy of the print version; while the portrait mode makes changes in design to suit the new platform. Advertisers also have embedded video and links that are missing from the landscape mode.
Editorially, I will admit that generally I find Vanity Fair hit-or-miss, but I would rate this app as the number one stand-alone magazine app so far released. Is Wired next?
• The Financial Times launched its iPad app on Friday afternoon. A full review will appear here first thing Monday morning. Like their iPhone app, the iPad app is free to download but will require a subscription to access content. Now the good news: access to content will be free until the end of July as the FT have lined up a single sponsor: Hublot. Users can download the current edition for easy offline viewing, or press a button and go back to the live edition. First impression? Looks great.
• Staying on topic: I spoke to photographer/publisher Timothy Paul Moore about the iPad app he developed for his indie zine Letter to Jane. As far as I can tell, Moore's iPad app is the first for a small, independent magazine. It definitely takes a minimalist approach, but it works and its online -- selling for 99 cents in iTunes. Go support citizen publishing!
• Executive editor Bill Keller confirmed on Thursday that the New York Times will be instituting its metered paywall for online readers in January. Speaking at the Foreign Press Association, Keller did not give any hints at pricing, or what the threshold would be for online readers -- that is, when they would have to start paying -- but the Times has given themselves plenty of time to work out those details.
• On Monday I posted my interview with Carll Tucker, founder and publisher at Main Street Connect, a group of community online news sites that wants to expand nationally from its current core of local sites in Fairfield County, Connecticut. MSC will continue to increase the number of sites of its owner/operating group in the NYC DMA, but will use an affiliate model to launch additional groups of sites around the country.
Unlike AOL-owned Patch, which is funding their expansion internally, and is not emphasizing (or apparently not emphasizing) monetization, MSC hopes to train and lead their affiliates in such a way that they will be able to generate significant revenue through ad sales right away.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Week in Review
Friday, May 14, 2010
Photoblogging Friday - 19
Friday is upon us and for the first time ever Photoblogging Friday is spotlighting photography to be found on an iPad app.
from Letter to Jane. →
Yesterday TNM posted a look at the iPad app from Portland, Oregon photographer and indie zine publisher Timothy Paul Moore. Moore's Letter to Jane is both a website, as well as a downloadable (PDF) magazine. Now, Moore has an iPad app in iTunes, as well. The app features Issue 01 of the magazine, complete with interviews, features and photography.
The top photograph here is from the "Photos" section named Relax. The bottom two photographs are from his "Features" section, a photo feature of musician Dan Deacon. For more information, read the interview here.
← Timothy Paul Moore,
Google gives up selling the Nexus One via web store only; will seek to sell its smartphone via retail stores
The Android platform may be growing by leaps and bounds, but Google has admitted that its online-only strategy for selling the Nexus One needs revamping.
In a blog post this morning, Google VP, Engineering, Andy Rubin wrote that the company move to would follow the sales model it had adopted for Europe: working through retail partners to sell the Nexus One phone.
"We’re very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One," Rubin wrote.
"But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from."
Apple's response to Adobe attack ad? An e-mail to its customers promoting the purchase of Creative Suite 5
I received a most unexpected e-mail this afternoon: an e-mail promoting Adobe's newest version of Creative Suite -- CS5. As you can see, the e-mail invites me to buy Adobe's latest package of production tools at an Apple Retail Store, or online.
In either case, when it comes to pushing sales, the Apple-Adobe Flash war is not going to get the way of retail sales, right? What will Adobe's next move be? An ad encouraging Flash users to buy an iPad?
Retweet: iPad as 'The Big One'
John Gruber, who blogs at Daring Fireball, and is an essential source of news and opinion on all things Apple. Today Gruber promotes his own column in the next issue of MacWorld, where he attempts to describe how Apple new product development works and how the process ends up creating market shifting products.
Read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:
They take something small, simple, and painstakingly well considered. They ruthlessly cut features to derive the absolute minimum core product they can start with. They polish those features to a shiny intensity. At an anticipated media event, Apple reveals this core product as its Next Big Thing, and explains—no, wait, it simply shows—how painstakingly thoughtful and well designed this core product is. The company releases the product for sale.Gruber then goes on to trace the history of various Apple products/innovations, leading eventually his views of the iPad: "The iPad really is The Big One: Apple’s reconception of personal computing," Gruber writes.
I think Gruber is right about much of this, and he is definitely in a better position to comment on all things tech than I am. But having lived with the iPad for over a month now, and having written about and tested many news apps developed for the device, I am a still a little torn between thinking the iPad is revolutionary, or that tablets designed like the iPad will be the real revolution.
Gruber talks about the development of the first iPods and how the devices were (typical for Apple) sleek and minimal -- that is, they were engineered down to their essential elements. Only later was more functionality added.
Where I question whether the iPad can be as important a device for Apple as the iPod is in the area of openness and compatibility. When Apple first opened the iTunes store, it used the AAC format with added encryption instead of the more common MP3 format. The result was lots of complaints and claims that Apple was closing down its system. It was not true, not because that wasn't Apple plan, but because re-encoding music from one format to another is so easy (and still is).
Today, the Achilles’ heel of the iPad could be its inability to display all Internet sites as currently designed, and the fact that many news organizations have hesitated designing apps for the product because of this same weakness -- in other words, Flash.
Am I arguing that not supporting Flash is a mistake? No. I think we will have to wait and see. But I would argue that if another manufacturer were to introduce a tablet as powerful as the iPad, as sleekly designed as the iPad, and with the same access to third party apps as the iPad and it supported Flash, we might be a fair fight.
I suppose this is where Apple has the advantage, and why I respect Gruber's opinion on these matters. Go to any major computer store that also carries Apple products (OK, I mean Best Buy) and compare laptop computers. PCs from Sony, Asus, H-P, Samsung may be as powerful or more so, they may contain more features, they most certainly will be cheaper, but how do they compare design-and-build-wise? (We'll leave the OS question out of this.)
The point is that Apple's iPad may, indeed, be the next "Big One" as Gruber claims, or it may be like the Mac, a product that changed everything in personal computers, and still ended up being a product with a minimal market share. I am sure that the iPad has introduced to the media world tablet publishing -- it is, in fact, one of the reasons this site was established. But whether Apple ultimately dominates the world of tablets is still to be determined.
Times editor announces January date for metered paywall
The New York Times has finally announced when it plans to institute its own version of the website paywall as it announced it will begin charging for articles starting in January of next year.
Executive editor Bill Keller, speaking at the Foreign Press Association Thursday evening made the announcement, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Times plan calls for the paper to construct a "metered paywall" where occasional readers, drawn by search results, and the like can continue to read articles for free. Regular readers who frequent the site often and read multiple articles will be monitored and will be forced to pay some sort of fee once they have reached a certain threshold.
As of today, the Times has not given out information about either the threshold, or the price frequent readers will be forced to play. Then again, there is still a lot of time between today and January, and the Times may still decide to abandon its idea, or else construct a total paywall.
