Boston Globe to launch digital pilot program involving iPads, digital subscriptions in Boston & Stoneham schools

The Boston Globe announced this afternoon that it will be launching a digital pilot program that will put 75 iPads and digital subscriptions to BostonGlobe.com into public school classrooms in Boston and Stoneham, Mass.

The program runs through the spring semester at both school districts and is being paid for by $65,000 of vacation donation funds from Globe subscribers. 50 iPads, along with projectors, will go to Boston schools, 25 to Stoneham High School.

“We believe that digital kids turn into digital adults, to put it simply," said Robert Saurer, the Globe’s director of customer experience and innovation. "We want to provide easy, portable access not only to our content, but to the greater world of content on the web – deployed in the classroom daily, streamed live, as the kids are learning."

"In the past, we have had to rely on the limited number of desktops or laptops available in schools. Computers are often not available for social sciences classes, or for other work where students would benefit by being able to do their own online research," Saurer said.

The weekly music trade journal Billboard Magazine enters the Apple Newsstand with a new hybrid tablet edition

With their apps still showing up in the App Store under the name Prometheus Global Media, the publisher of such trade journals as Adweek and The Hollywood Reporter, has released their first tablet edition for Billboard Magazine.

Billboard Magazine, the app, is using the hybrid approach to creating its tablet edition: most print ads are as seen in print, while editorial pages are reformatted for the iPad. The result is an easy to read digital magazine that uses standard iPad magazine navigation of scrolling within stories and swiping to advance to the next feature.

This is the same approach used by its other tablet editions, Adweek Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter. The one thing I noticed that seemed a bit different, however, was the way 2-page spreads were handled. While many tab editions simply spread the two pages over two tablet pages, leading to parts of the ad making no sense, Billboard is choosing to reduce the size of the spread to a single page. It is possible that the art director chose to do this because the ad in question, for Fintage House, works find reduced down in this fashion – it is possible they wouldn't do this to an ad with smaller fonts.

The latest issue inside the app, which is used as a sample, is a smallish download – less than 100 MB. This is accomplished by making the tablet edition portrait-only, and by limiting multimedia features.
Left: the subscription pop-up that appears upon opening the app; Middle: the cover of the latest issue inside the app; Right: ads are as they appear in print, which is slightly shorter than the size of the iPad's display

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The publishing company recently brought on Yahoo’s former interim-CEO Ross Levinsohn as its CEO, and announced that going forward the company would be renamed Guggenheim Digital Media.

"While there's digital in the title of this company, the importance of print goes without saying," Levinsohn said at the time of the announcement. "I don't think print is something that goes away."

The Prometheus Global Media name, though, is not going away quickly. The developer account at Apple remains under that name, and the Prometheus name appears here in the Masthead – though the new corporate name is there, as well.

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Here is a walk-through video of the latest issue inside the app – which, by the way, can be downloaded free of charge so that a reader can sample both the publication and its tablet edition:

Kantar report shows continued strength of iOS mobile platform in U.S.; BlackBerry market share tumbles

A new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech reveals Apple maintaining strong market share for its iOS mobile platform in the U.S., and that at both AT&T and Verizon, the iPhone remains king. For the 12 week period at the end of the year, iOS maintained a 51.2 percent market share, versus 44.2 percent for Android. RIM's market share for its BlackBerry OS dropped from 6.1 percent to 1.1 percent.

"Apple’s continual improvement is thanks to both the iPhone 5 and older models attracting various customer groups, from repeat Apple buyers, first time smartphone buyers and those coming from other smartphone brands," said Kantar Worldpanel ComTech analyst Mary-Ann Parlato.

"In particular, 36% of iOS sales were derived from other smartphone users over the last year. While this figure remains stable over time, the proportion of Android users moving towards the Apple brand increases. 19% of iOS sales over the last year were derived from Android users, compared to 9% in 2011," continued Parlato.

Apple's dominance is particularly noticeable at AT&T where Apple's platform's market share reached 74.7 percent of sales. But iOS also grew at Verizon, as well, reaching 58.8 percent in the report's 12-week period of 2012, versus 38.5 percent for Android, a drop from 47.5 percent during the same period of 2011.

Microsoft Windows market share barely ticked up, 2.06 percent in 2012, versus 2.2 percent during the same time period at the end of 2011.

Morning Brief: Freeze warning; RIM extends BlackBerry app deadline; Lee Enterprises sells off Kauai property to Honolulu newspaper company Oahu Publications

Welcome to Chicago, where it is minus 7 degrees Fahrenheit outside my door this morning (that's minus 21 Celsius for many TNM readers). If you ask me that is a ridiculous temperature.

There were no app updates in my iTunes account this morning, a reflection of the fact that yesterday was a holiday for many here in the U.S. Expect updates and new mobile and tablet apps to appear later in the morning as the review teams begin to release them into the various stores.

The BlackBerry Developer Blog yesterday announced that the company had received over 19,000 applications over the past weekend for apps designed from Blackberry World. RIM is conducting a promotion, the 10k Developer Commitment, to try and lure apps to the platform where it the app submitted earns over $1,000 in sales RIM will play the developer the difference between their actual sales and $10,000 – essentially guaranteeing the developer $10k in sales.

Because of the positive response, RIM will be extending the deadline for the promotion through 8pm EST today. (The BlackBerry World Vendor Portal deadline is 8pm ET February 18th.) Qualifying sales will occur between March 4 of this year through March 3 of 2014.

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Lee Enterprises sold off The Garden Island newspaper to Oahu Publications, Inc. (OPI) late yesterday Hawaii time. The newspaper is located on the island of Kauai.

"In 1902, Kauai Publishing Company began printing The Garden Island, one of Hawaii’s most historic and enduring newspapers,” said Dennis Francis, OPI president and publisher of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “We want this newspaper to continue building its journalistic legacy and serving the people of Kauai. We feel strongly that Kauai residents need their own in-depth, locally-produced daily news."

As a result of the purchase, The Garden Island will now be printed in Honolulu and flown in each morning. OPI already flies in copies of the Honolulu paper each morning.

The announcement is already generating comments online from readers: "Good riddance to Lee Enterprises, but my heart goes out to all the pressmen and others who are losing their jobs," said on commenter. "Hopefully Hawaii-based ownership will be good for readers, but it would be nice if it were good for employees, as well."

Add another to the "What would Steve Jobs think?" list

Yes, Steve Jobs really is dead and the money people are running Apple now. Need proof? It's right there in the App Store where crap list this gets in, and the store is redesigned to screw the small, independent developers in favor of the big boys.

This is yet another app from Sergey Rudnev, who has numerous apps like this one, "Magazine ULaLa", in the App Store, all with one-star reviews because either the app doesn't work or the content is garbage. (Apparently "ULaLa" is what a Russian hears when a Frenchman says "oh là là".)

Another of Sergey Rudnev's apps is Magazine 'Gun' which promises to teach you how to buy used guns.

It's a shame what is happening to the App Store and to relations with independent developers. But Apple is a stock-price driven company now, so what do you expect?

Morning Brief: MLK Day and Inauguration Day 2 today; IHT and Blogsy app updates; S.F. Chronicle's '49ers Insider' digital magazine makes it to the Super Bowl

Sunday was Inauguration Day in the U.S., the Constitutionally mandated day the President is to be sworn in. But tradition holds that because the 20th fell on a Sunday, the actual public celebration of the Inauguration would be delayed until Monday. So today the President will reenact his swearing in on the steps of the Capitol.

Adding to the uniqueness, and oddness, of the day, today is Martin Luther King Day, a Federal holiday that is not universally observed by businesses as a paid day off, will only about a third of businesses giving their employees a paid day off to observe the holiday (a day where banks are closed and there is no postal service).

Is Apple one of those companies that continues to work the holiday? Hard to tell, but several app updates were released today so it appears so.

The New York Times Co.'s iPad app for the International Herald Tribune was updated today – mostly bug fixes – as was the app for Blogsy, the blogging app for the iPad. Blogsy has added support for Dutch, as well as some fixes for features tied to Tumblr.

While Americans may, or may not, celebrate either the Inaugural or MLK Day – those who don't probably sharing a lot in common, and are generally to be avoided – one non-holiday that is celebrated like a holiday is coming up: Super Bowl Sunday.

Yesterday the two teams that will play in the Super Bowl were determined and one of them has turned out to be the San Francisco 49ers. If recall, back in September TNM looked at three new tablet magazines focused on local NFL teams: BearDownload from the Chicago Tribune, Bears Extra from the Chicago Sun-Times, and 49ers Insider from the San Francisco Chronicle. All three digital magazines use the Mag+ platform, though the three business models were somewhat different.

Well, da Bears, as they are known in these parts, failed to make the playoffs this year so regular issues have ceased. The Tribune ended using the iPad app as of the last game of the season. But the Sun-Times has kept their digital magazine alive by publishing two issues since the last game in order to talk about the firing of the old coach, and then the naming of the new one.

The Hearst paper's app in S.F., of course, has continue right on publishing two issues a week – even during the week when the 49ers did not have a playoff game. Now there is two weeks before the Super Bowl and no doubt readers will continue to see two new issues released a week.

Was the experiment worth while? We'll probably know what the paper thinks soon as spring training will begin in a few weeks for the baseball season. As the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2012 it would be logical for sports department at the Chronicle to want to duplicate the 49ers digital magazine for the local, and very popular baseball team – unless they feel it is not worth the effort.