Morning Brief: WoodWing adds Newsfeed Publisher to Content Station; TweetDeck goes to Twitter for $40 million

Digital publishing solutions provider WoodWing has announced a series of upgrades to its digital publishing solutions palette, including Newsfeed Publisher (see screenshot below) which allows publishers to integrate feeds into their iPad digital publications.

WoodWing also announced that it has released iPad Reader App 2.0 which brings support for hotspots on hotspots.

"Hotspots on hotspots is going to be a big thing,” Erik Schut, President of WoodWing Software, said in the company's announcement. “Ever since designers started to use our nested interactivity, we have had requests for hotspots on hotspots. The problem has been how to offer a creation UI for this that is still easy to use. We’re very proud how we have implemented this in Enterprise 7.4 in a way that allows us to open the door to the next level of interactivity. And it’s all under total control by the designer without the need for coding."

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Last night CNN reported that Twitter has acquired TweetDeck for $40 million. The long rumored purchase finally has finalized yesterday.

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The race to turn the iPad into a full fledged cash register is on. Yesterday I was looking at ShopKeep.com, a company that currently offers register services for the Mac and PC but will soon be offering an iPad solution, as well.

The NYT, however, wrote yesterday about another company, Square Inc., that is already launching mobile payment solutions through iOS devices. The company launched their own apps into the App Store, Square, which when combined with a free card reader that the company will send you, allows you to begin accepting credit card payments. The fees are 2.75 percent when using the card reader, 3.5 percent when you are forced to enter the numbers manually.

While these products are interesting, retailers will be looking at whether these new vendors offer a complete package of POS services as they are already squeezed by costs associated with register sales, inventory, etc.

Monday afternoon bits: Apple sends letter defending app developers; a look at some newly launched mobile apps

Faced with increasing frustration at its silence, today lawyers for Apple finally spoke to the Lodsys patent dispute, sending a letter to the company threatenting individual developers.

“Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license,” Bruce Sewell, Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel, claimed in his letter to Lodsys.

"Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys' patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Makers are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys," Sewell wrote, according to the full letter posted on the MacWorld website.

"...Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent."

Now the ball is back in the patent troll's court.

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It's been a while that TNM looked at any mobile apps (opposed to tablet apps), so I thought a a quick look at three new ones is in order:

PC users who are deaf, hard of hearing, or simply want to hear rather than read the news on a website can use their computer's speech capability to have the news read to them. This ability of your computer to speak to you goes back at least as far as the introduction of the Mac, as far as I am aware. But if you ask me, things haven't really progressed as far as one would have thought – text read by the computer is still fairly artificial.

One company that was trying to contract with newspaper websites to add audio news reading was Newsworthy, but judging by their website they haven't made much progress as their latest press release announcing a deal with the Washington Times is from 2006.

Now Newsworthy has released a mobile app, Wash Times, that promises to deliver the user the news in audio form.

The app (below left) has at least two major things going against it: one, it costs $3.99, and it is news from the Washington Times, the newspaper founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon. Oh well.

I would think that the vast majority of mobile app developers have started with iOS and moved to Android. Moving Average Inc. is a small Austin, Texas-based developer that looks to have gone in the other direction, starting with a couple of Android apps before launching their first app for Apple's platform this past week.
Keep Austin Dog Friendly is a free app (above middle) that works on both the iPhone and iPad, though it definitely feels more at home on a mobile device.

Finally, I've been searching for a decent equalizer for my iPhone/iPad for a while. It has to have about ten bands, and most not cost me a fortune. I downloaded a couple but am still on the look out for something that will work.

One that I downloaded, 10 Band EQ, is a 99 cent app (above right). The EQ part works fine but the player portion of the app is of no value. Tracks must be played one at a time without moving forward or skipping to the next track.

The good news is that the developer, David Ross, promises in the app description that an update is coming soon that will add these features. If true, then this app will be worth more than 99 cents, so buying it now will have been worth it.

Pedro Monteiro's interview with Joe Zeff, the creator of the iPad book 'Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz'

Three weeks ago TNM posted a look at Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz, a new book app from Joe Zeff Design. A week later Pedro Monteiro conducted an interview with Joe Zeff for his new website Digital Distribution. Here is that interview, reproduced courtesy of the publisher:

Joe Zeff needs no introduction and neither does his work. I’ve been a huge fan of Joe’s work for some time now and it has been with great interest that I’ve been following Joe Zeff Studio work designing and publishing iPad apps.

In the last weeks Joe’s studio launched two new applications that are getting some great reviews. Since I was writing my post Designing for the Touch Interface, I thought it was a great excuse to ask Joe about his views on the subject. Please refer to my article in order to better understand the questions I made to Joe. Most important, don’t forget to check Joe’s latest apps The Final Hours of Portal 2 and Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz.

Digital Distribution: As someone who studies tablet apps, what are the most common mistakes you find on app’s interfaces?

Joe Zeff: I see a lot of apps that confuse users by using every conceivable orientation, without clear signals about how to navigate from one screen to the next. Just because the iPad can flow pages in two directions and present layouts in two orientations doesn’t mean the user wants to continually swipe and turn their device to move from the beginning to the end of an app.

DD: Since the launch of the iPad, early last year, Apple has told developers to take into account that the size of a finger is much bigger and less precise then that of the mouse pointer. When you design your applications UI, how do you take into account this kind of specifications?

JZ: Oversized buttons and ample spacing between tappable elements. We generally make those areas much larger than what’s shown on screen to ensure that each tap delivers the intended result.

DD: From your experience, what other sort of UI constrains are to be taken into account for designing for touch powered navigation devices?

JZ: The best interfaces are intuitive and transparent. “Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz” is an example of this. We did include a How To section, even though the interface is self-evident.

DD: Developers tend to design their apps both for vertical and horizontal orientation of the device’s screen. Do you think that one orientation is more comfortable (hence more used) than the other? Do you also take this into account when designing apps?

JZ: I’m a strong believer in single-orientation apps, most often horizontal. Rather than spend twice the effort to create the same app twice, I’d rather create two different apps. I prefer horizontal format because it allows for bigger images while maintaining a solid text-to-art mix at the top of the screen. But every publication is different. Time seems right as a vertical, while Sports Illustrated seems more comfortable as a horizontal. Go figure.



DD: I’ve been consuming lots of content with my iPad, every other night. By doing this, I have found that, after a while, my arms ache a bit. Even if it’s a lightweight device, the iPad will take its toll when you spend a couple of hours reading on it.
Do you think this should be taken into account, when designing the app UI? How?

JZ: The iPad 2 is far better than the original when it comes to portability and usability. I’m writing this now while laying in bed, and its very comfortable. That said, I find that all of the swiping gets tedious at times. Better to tap an edge to advance screens.

DD: Regarding my ‘aching arms’, I’ve come to think that the more a interface ‘makes you’ hold the tablet with just one hand to tap into content with the other, the more it gets ‘uncomfortable’. Do you think we should refrain our UI design from asking too much interaction from our users?

JZ: Interaction is what makes the iPad special. Rather than limit the opportunities, I’d argue that its more important to ensure that each opportunity delivers a sufficient payoff to the user. The best content is active, not passive, and the emphasis on quality is what matters most.

DD: Any final thoughts you want to share with us?

JZ: Thanks for the opportunity to present my opinions. There are no rights or wrongs – every app is different, and should be designed to best suit its content, purpose and audience. What works for one app doesn’t necessarily make sense for another. The danger in establishing standards is that everything begins to look alike. Best practices are a starting point, not a destination.

DD: Joe, thank you so much and all the best for your next projects. We look forward for what you’ll do next.

– Pedro Monteiro

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Update: On Friday Joe Zeff Design released an update to the Above & Beyond app, making some subtle changes in response to user feedback.

Sutro Digital releases its own magazine, Technode; for print via Magcloud or for the iPad through branded app

Social content agency Sutro Digital launched its own quarterly magazine, Technode, using content generated by its own websites Shiny Shiny and Tech Digest.

The new magazine can be accessed in print from Magcloud, HP's print-on-demand service, where it is a $8.20 purchase, or through the App Store where the app, Technode, is a free download.

The whole production is a lesson in outsourcing involving at least three other companies besides Sutro Digital: onegoodeye.co.uk, which is credited with designing and preparing the magazine, Alligator Digital Magazines, which I assume took the files and converted them for use in an iPad app, and Magcloud, which was the vendor chosen to produce print copies.

It is pretty clear that magazine was designed to fit into the Magcloud system first. This creates portrait oriented pages which would then be put into an iPad app. Added to the print content was then added embedded YouTube hosted videos.

Because issues created using Magcloud are so expensive for the consumer to buy, the publisher here was forced to limit the content to 36 pages. This shows that the model just doesn't work: the print edition will cost you $8.20 but is limited, but the iPad version is free and contains more content.

This new magazine, while it holds some lessons for publishers in how to produce inexpensive products, is really a promotional piece for Sutro Digital – an expense they obviously considering paying.

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The real point of interest for me in tablet magazines such as Technode is the concept of gathering up content from multiple websites and creating a magazine. Here, with Technode, the magazine is not simply copy taken from the websites, but additional material, as well – long form rather than short posts.

This idea can not only be used within the same media company, but as a way of creating a third product from two or more separate websites – say, for instance, websites that cover the same topic but from different regional perspectives.

WEKA Media Publishing releases new tablet edition for hifi tech magazine Stereoplay

I can think of at least two types of magazines that should be on the iPad immediately: those involved in video content, like movie magazines, and those involved in music. Both types of magazines can be instantly transformed via creative use of tablet technology.

This idea is put to use by WEKA Media Publishing, the German magazine publisher of such magazines as PC Magazin, COLORFOTO and AUDIO. Ten days ago the publisher released its first tablet edition for Stereoplay, a hifi equipment and technology magazine.

Unfortunately for those looking for a real tablet magazine, the publishers of Stereoplay have decided to put their time into "enhancing" their print magazine with links to photo galleries and multimedia content rather than creating a true tablet magazine experience. In the end, what readers get here is a PDF with links, a very disappointing effort from such a large publisher.

Stereoplay is a free download in the App Store. The app gives readers access to one issue at this time which is also free, though the app certainly implies that future editions may require a purchase.

Immediately I was struck with the fact that the download prompt was in broken English, complete with a typo – since the magazine is written in German I was expecting German prompts, as well. The download was slow and quite large, though the app does not tell the reader the exact size of the download.

The reason the download is large, despite this being basically a replica edition is all the added content. No doubt this took the production team a fair amount of time to add into the app, wouldn't it have been a better idea to spend that time creating a more native tablet publication? Advocates of native apps, or at least Adobe/WoodWing-like conversion would say so, while vendors pushing replicas would probably applaud the effort.

Morning Brief: UK Prime Minister says current privacy laws need to "catch up": VYou gets $3M in new funding

The Guardian this morning reports that UK Prime Minister David Cameron has suggested that UK privacy laws are putting the media at a disadvantage in comparison to social media as current laws prohibit the naming of celebrities involved in news events.

At the center of the discussion is the case of British footballer who is alleged to have had an affair with the model Imogen Thomas, with the name of the player widely known through discussions on social media, but not named by mainstream UK media out of fear of prosecution. The Sunday Herald, which is published in Scotland, is not bound by the privacy injunction and so was free to print the picture of the footballer (which will go unnamed here simply because of disinterest).

"It is rather unsustainable, this situation, where newspapers can't print something that everyone else is clearly talking about," Cameron said on UK television this weekend.

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VYou snagged $3 million in funding from RRE Ventures and Highland Capital Partners and others, the Washington Post reported. The company has several big media partners such as Hearst Newspapers and Simon and Schuster.

VYou allows users to "converse" via video clips. The investment is consistent with the approach currently being taken by VCs to fund multiple tech investments in hopes of striking it big with the next Facebook.