IPad's Hype might just be worth it

When a product is so ultra-hyped like the iPad you tend to suspect its brilliance but sometimes the hype is worth it. I picked up an iPad a couple of weeks ago and its future becomes extremely obvious once you start playing with.

A recent report done for Next Issue Media suggests there's buckets of money to be made by magazine publishers from the iPad. Now, Next Issue Media want their magazines to make money so they're not likely to publish a report suggesting the opposite but all the same, they had a few interesting findings.

The report suggests that young readers will dump the printed magazine completely for the new e-reader version and they're willing to pay more since the e-reader magazine is going to incorporate video and mix the media around much more. It will add value.

A large group of those who are already accustomed to buying the printed magazine will probably continue to do so but they could imagine buying the downloaded version for their e-reader also. There was also a large group who bought the printed version and couldn't imagine going over to an e-reader version at any stage.

So the opportunities are there and the iPad experience is an enjoyable one. It's really only becoming a feasible alternative today since it relies on being online all the time and anywhere. In Sweden, that's quite possible these days and the broadband speeds are high enough even on a mobile network.

The three magazines I downloaded were easy to read and entertaining. We haven't figured out how to best present a magazine in this format yet and I suspect it will take a few more years before this settles but the iPad will improve, the designers will figure out how to make it easier to move around it and present magazines on it and it certainly seems like this is a format to start working on.

And if it's going to work for mainstream media, we better start thinking about it from a corporate communications perspective.



Colm O'Callaghan is JG Communication’s Head of Operations so when he’s not blogging he’s looking after the day to day business at this wonderful communicaitons agency.
So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.

Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation