Week in Review

Short reads on a Saturday morning:

Last week was dominated by news from Google's I/O conference; this week was dominated by all things iPad as Apple introduced the tablet to the rest of the world, and developers and publishers rolled out their tablet offerings.

Next week, while shortened because of the Memorial Day holiday, will probably be more of a mixed bag. But Apple's own developer conference will occur the following week so once again may dominate the news.

• Yesterday Apple launched the iPad internationally, and with it came a stream of new news apps -- some written specifically for the tablet, others simply ported over. U.K. readers now have access to The Times as well as the Financial Times (both were released in the U.S. early), The Australian appeared yesterday for the first time, as did a series of apps for Polish newspapers and for Italian newspapers.

One of the stranger launches was for the Globe and Mail, one of Canada's better newspapers. For reasons I can't quite understand, a branded app called Globe2Go was launched on the day the iPad was launched in Canada. It is strange because the app did not come from the paper itself but from NewspaperDirect Inc., the company behind the PressReader app.

The PressReader app is a nice app, in its own way. That is, it gives iPad owners access to hundreds of newspapers across the world, but the app itself is a simple flipbook-type reader that adds very little interactivity or added content. Did NewspaperDirect bail out the Globe and Mail by providing a branded app at launch?

In the end, the pickings were slim as newspaper and magazine companies probably did not have enough time between the initial iPad launch on April 3 and the international launch yesterday to develop their own apps. The commercial developers I have talked to tell me the reasonable time between start and finish is at least six weeks -- right where we are at now. Therefore, I would expect the new apps to start trickling into iTunes now and through the summer.

• Barnes & Noble, which recently updated its NOOK software, launched an iPad app this week as it got onto equal footing with Amazon's Kindle.

As I wrote on Thursday, like the Kindle app from Amazon, the app is simply a way to organize and read your online purchases with the iPad. Once you have downloaded the free app you are requested to either sign-in to your existing account or else create a new account. The process is easy and does not require a credit card immediately. Buying a book then becomes an online experience rather than an in-app experience.

All-in-all, a very good e-reader. Now the issue becomes book prices and my own short amount of research shows that in this area Amazon is still the clear leader.

• More book publishing developments: Apple has opened its iBookstore to self-publishers. The Apple Connect program now includes books, as well as music. Authors need a ISBN number and would have to be in ePub format. Those a little concerned about doing this themselves can have an aggregator such as LibreDigital do the work.

Amazon has allowed self-publishers to submit books for Kindle, so Apple's move is hardly revolutionary. But book publishers have to be confused and concerned about the future of their industry, even while they may be excited about the growth of digital distribution. They should talk to the music labels to see if they can get advice.

• Lastly, as far as the iPad is concerned: the long-anticipated Wired magazine app appeared in iTunes on Wednesday representing the June issue. Initial reviews have been mixed, but my own views are that it is a winner.

Some may have been disappointed that the app can't walk on water (or sell two-page spreads by itself). Whatever. If Mr. Magazine is correct, digital can't save the magazine anyway so I guess creating an iPad app was a giant waste of time.

On the other hand, those thousands of new tablet owners appear to want to read publications on their devices. According to Wired, the publisher was able to sell 24,000 apps its first day. And as of Friday, the Wired app was the number paid news app in iTunes. I bet those advertisers that bought premium ads (containing interactive content in the iPad edition) were a happy bunch.

• The Bay Citizen, the non-profit news site and organization created with the financial support of F. Warren Hellman, the former head of the Investment Banking Division at Lehman Brothers, launched this week. The site describes itself as a non-profit, nonpartisan news organization, and hopes to survive off of large foundation gifts, memberships, sponsorships/underwriting and syndication.

Jonathan Weber is serving as editor-in-chief. Weber was co-founder and editor of The Industry Standard, at one time in its short life the magazine with the most ad pages in America.

• The New York Times own Bay Area blog may be the first casualty, if you will, of the Times new relationship with The Bay Citizen. Writers Felicity Barringer and Ryan and Mac wrote a farewell post yesterday -- San Francisco, the Rorschach Test -- and announced that the new entity would take over the content. The lead bloggers for the Bay Area blog have been Michelle Quinn and Katharine Mieszkowski -- Mieszkowski is now a senior writer for The Bay Citizen.

Photoblogging Friday - 21

It's Friday, and that means another edition of Photoblogging Friday, and frankly I'm worn out downloading and reviewing publication apps. So I'll let TNM's resident photography contributor, Dean Brierly, handle this weeks PbF. Dean points to these three photographs of recent demonstrations held around the world this week:

---

The spirit of protest is alive and well over the world, as these photos attest. Seoul, Korea: Police wrestle with protesters attempting to burn the North Korean flag during a protest rally. [photo: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images] Dublin, Ireland: Protesters express their dissatisfaction with government cutbacks in a more peaceful, yet still resolute manner. [photo: Julien Behal/PA] Bangkok, Thailand: That’s not a policeman holding the automatic rifle. It’s one of the participants in a staged protest against the country’s recent military clampdown. [photo: Dita Alangkara/AP]

---

You can read more stories and interviews with photographers at Dean Brierly's website, Photographers Speak.

Thread 3: Last look at International Launch Day

A live blog of new media apps and events surrounding today's international launch of Apple's iPad:

It is almost impossible to get a feeling for the reaction to news apps from buyers of the iPad overseas by looking inside the U.S. version of iTunes. For instance, on Monday of this week, The Times of London app was introduced into the U.S. iTunes store. Selling for $16.99 for four weeks worth of access, the app still has no reviews.

Today, however, the same app has appeared in the U.K. app store. The app, named simply The Times, costs £9.99 for the same four weeks of access. But in the U.K. store, the Times app has several more screenshots, and already has 45 ratings -- predominately positive. Some early reviews from this morning were completely negative because apparently the newspaper was making the content available yet. A little while later the reviews became more positive.

---

Trolling around the app store this morning also reveals some interesting insights from new iPad owners who are downloading their first apps. For instance, one reviewer of the Wired app from the U.K. comments that he/she much prefers the iPad version because it is the U.S. version of the magazine versus the U.K. version -- which he/she calls "outdated".

Another observation: paid apps are more highly rated than free apps. This may seem counterintuitive, but makes sense when you realize that you can only rate an app if you have downloaded it. Because of this, a free app can be downloaded and installed, then rated as a one-star app -- even if the owner really is up to some mischief. A paid app, of course, implies a bit of commitment to really owning the app.

---

Stephen Page, chief executive of book publisher Faber and Faber, has penned a column as part of the Guardian's iPad launch coverage.

The iPad's arrival is unlikely in itself to create a revolution in ebook sales but, like Amazon's Kindle electronic reader before, it will accelerate the reading universe that's coming. That's great news for readers. It should also be good news for writers, as these are genuinely new ways for their work to be discovered, paid for and read. But what about publishers?

He answers his own question here.

---

The Australian's iPad coverage includes a story about their photographer, Alan Pryke, getting pushed about by security personnel. The video though seems to show that it is the photographer that is being a bit out-of-line, but I suppose this is all a matter of interpretation.

---

Le Monde also has extensive iPad launch coverage today. One of its stories concerns Apple's Steve Jobs and his stated goal to keep porn off the iPad. It's a bit of an old story by now, but current for the French since the device became available for purchase today.

The story recounts both sides of the issue, but misses one point: Apple seems more interested in keeping the app store clean than it is good. That is, Apple continues to let developers spam the store with worthless apps while at the same time declining apps from legitimate publishers who happen to show more flesh than Apple approves of. Apple is coming off as not only puritanical but hypocritical, as well. (I've already proposed that Apple adopt a channel manager approach where they employ channel managers who have industry -- in this case, media -- experience. I've also volunteered for the job. No word yet on my start date.)

Le Monde's main story about the device mentions that the devices success is caused not just based on the device's merits but by the shocking lack of competition.

Read More >

Thread 2: International launch of the iPad

A live blog of new media apps and events surrounding today's international launch of Apple's iPad:

Paperlit, a start-up company that has been releasing iPhone apps for Italian newspapers since late last year, has just released its first app for the iPad.

The free news app, for the newspaper EPolis Milano, is a simple flipbook type app with no interactivity. It looks at first glance that the app was a simply optimization of the iPhone app. One additional navigation feature, not seen in the screenshots below is a row of page thumbnails can be pulled up along the bottom of the screen to assist moving from one area of the newspaper to another.

Paperlit is certainly an interesting company. Formed last year by Gionata Mettifogo and Mario Mariani, the company states they are a Menlo Park based company with operations in Cagliari, Italy. All the company's clients, though, are Italian (as you'd expect, I suppose). The company received start-up money from The Net Value, Annapurna Ventures and Zermike Meta Group. Mariani is listed as being the head of biz dev, but he is also the CEO of Tiscali Italia, a telecommunications company also headquartered in Cagliari.

---

Left: First screen where user picks edition to read; 

Middle: The front page once you have selected the edition; 

Right: an article, in this case, a story on the oil spill in the Gulf.

---

Paperlit has been developing news apps for the EPolis group from the beginning, so I would expect to see more iPad apps for EPolis newspapers appearing over the next few weeks.

“iPad is for us the best way editorial groups can express their full potential. Contents here become pure emotion involving readers in a brand new way”, said Gionata Mettifogo, founder of Paperlit in a recent release.

Despite this enthusiasm for the tablet format, the app for EPolis Milano is really a flipbook and not a good idea of where the medium is going. Nonetheless, the newspaper from Italy can proudly claim that their product was available on Day One of the iPad's launch.

---

How is your French? In the first thread I posted a video of an Apple Store opening this morning in Australia. Here is a better video from the Apple Store in Paris, complete with interviews.

---

In non-iPad related news . . .

Read More >

Today is the international debut of tablet publishing: a live blog of iPad news, new app launches, and more

A live blog of new media apps and events surrounding today's international launch of Apple's iPad:

The Guardian this morning reports on the launch of the iPad in Britain, reporting that Stephen Fry, the actor/comedian, who seems to be at every Apple launch, was on hand in London, as well.

---

Photograph: John Stillwell/AP;
courtesy of the Guardian →

---

"Just think of it as like if Lady Gaga were releasing a new album in a record store in New York and the frenzy there'd be – it's a cultural event rather than a technical one because the nature of the iPad is cultural rather than technological," Fry is quoted by the Guardian.

---

International media apps have been filtering their way into the iTunes store over the past few days. Just like their U.S. counterparts, publishers overseas are using different models -- from totally free, to free app/paid subscription, etc.

One of the more outlandish models being employed is coming from eGazety for a string of individual newspaper apps.

Apps for Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Parkiet, and Rzeczpospolita, all Polish newspapers, will set you back anywhere from $24.99 to $34.99 for a year's worth of access.

eGazety had previously this month released a free iPad and iPhone app, eGaxety Reader, which provides access to "300 eNewspapers".

---

Did you read the Mediabistro interview with Samir Husni, the man who promotes himself as Mr. Magazine?

Here is the money quote which concerns digital:

I bought an iPad. I am forcing myself to love it. I mean, heck, I figured I spent $700, I better love this thing. I mean I didn't really enjoy the magazine experience on it, like some people who were like -- because, you know, if you are not interested in the subject matter, no matter how many bells and whistles you are going to add, it's not going to convince you to buy it on the iPad instead of print. People who think the salvation of our magazine industry is going to be on an iPad or in digital delivery, they need to think twice.

What can I say? In a battle for the future I'll gladly line-up in the corner of digital.

---

Here is a new YouTube video from Australia: the Apple Store in Bondi Junction, an eastern suburb of Sydney, opens for business this morning at 8:00 AM local time. A long line of prospective iPad buyers march in to pick up their devices. Warning: turn down the volume.

---

more to come

Morning Brief: iPad hits Japan; Real Simple, Newsweek apps coming; Daily Mail still leading UK news site

The iPad hit Japan last night and the New York Times was there to report what it describes as the "shock" of yet another major electronic gadget hit that is coming from America instead of Japan.

“Apple never fails to wow me, time after time,” said Sayuri Aruga, 38, who sings in a progressive rock band in Tokyo. Ms. Aruga, who said she owns multiple iPods, an iPhone, and a MacBook Air, flew to San Francisco in April just to get her hands on the Wi-Fi model of the iPad, but now wants a 3G model, she said. She arrived at the store at 4 a.m., four hours before the store opened. “I’m going to do everything on it — read, write music,” she said. “The possibilities are endless.”

The Times reports that Japanese publisher Shufunotomo, the publisher of women's titles, will bring about 50 magazine and book titles to the iPad, while Yahoo Japan plans to offer free 100 comics for the iPad.

---

With Apple launching the iPad internationally today, you'd think the prospects for Apple's tablet was all rosy. But the New York Post reports that several major media companies -- and they name Time Warner and NBC Universal specifically -- have told Apple they won't reformat their video libraries to accommodate the iPad because Flash still dominates the web.

That all this with a grain of salt, however, because I have detected more than a bit of cynicism coming from the Murdoch owned publications of late.

---

Look for more iPad apps from Time Inc., but still using the same model of selling the apps at cover prices -- something that has actually made most iPad users extremely angry (don't these folk listen to their customers?).

Next up is Real Simple, selling for $4.99, the same price as Time magazine. That should prove popular (snark). It should be noted that as of today, less than 6 percent of iTunes reviewers consider the Time app a five-star app; while 74 percent consider it worthless. (I know these numbers are a bit bogus -- but at some point they need to step back and try a different approach, if only to test the possibilities.)

In news that won't get many excited, Newsweek is said to be launching their iPad app next week. Will anyone (other than TNM) notice its launch?

---

The Guardian seemed to take great pleasure in reporting that the Mail Online, the website for the Daily Mail was the U.K.'s most visited newspaper site with slightly over 40 million monthly browsers, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Guardian's own site ranked second.

So why would this delight the Guardian? Well, I think they love reporting the fact that Rupert Murdoch's News International had withdrawn its websites from the ABC's audit last month as he takes his sites behind a paywall.