2010 March

We know things are looking tough for pre-digital ‘legacy’ publishers, and have been for some time. But during the past few weeks there have been signs that publishers are moving backwards not forwards, attempting to rely on the ‘old’ way of doing things to point the way forward in a digital world.

This attitude of looking backwards rather than forwards is dangerous because it takes the focus away from the much more important question that urgently needs attention – how can we do things differently in the future in a way that adds value to our customers, while providing publishers with a profitable business model?

Two things are happening right now that illustrate this point:

1. Rupert Murdoch’s paywall

Murdoch is planning to charge for access to The Times and Sunday Times online. Arguments have raged about this, but in essence, it’s not about whether the £1-a-day, £2-a-week strategy is a fair price, too much or too little; it’s about the fact that it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet works. As Jeff Jarvis puts it:

By building his paywall around Times Newspapers, he has said that he has no new ideas to build advertising. He has no new ideas to build deeper and more valuable relationships with readers and will send them away if they do not pay. Even he has no new ideas to find the efficiencies the internet can bring in content creation, marketing, and delivery.

The whole concept of charging £1 for access to a day’s worth of news is based on another media’s economics, another media’s distribution mechanism, another media’s business model. It is a step backwards.

2. The iPad as saviour of traditional publishing business model

I’m excited about the iPad. It looks great, beautiful and, yes, innovative.

But for some it seems to have triggered the idea that the re-bundling of unbundled media is the way forward. This is another step backwards.

The fact that digital media is fragmented and unpackaged is its greatest strength. To put it back together and create an enhanced ‘magazine’ or ‘newspaper’ experience on your computer is a move in the wrong direction.

All the great innovations that digital media brought us – search, aggregation, microblogging, the hyperlink itself – is undermined by this strategy. As Clay Shirky puts it, with digital media ‘the decision about what to bring together into a bundle is made by the consumer and not the producer’ (see the video Clay Shirky on internet issues facing newspapers – link goes straight to discussion at 10 minutes 32 seconds. I should say that the exception, in my mind, is the long-form book format, which the iPad is well-placed to enhance).

The real danger with the two approaches outlined above is that by looking backwards to old ways of doing things you are putting yourself out of the running in the digital advance, and allowing other more nimble and focused competitors an even greater competitive advantage.

In other words, the more you look backward and your competitors look forward, the bigger the gap grows between you. This was brought home starkly last week in the other bit of news that caught my eye: Advertising Age’s report that print veterans looking to move into digital jobs are now finding it difficult:

There are now enough people who have digital experience that digital clients can hire them. They don’t have to worry about hiring from a tangential side of the business, i.e., print. But I think the other part of this, which is equally important, is that some digital clients wonder, if a print person hasn’t touched digital yet, what is that saying about them?

Okay so what’s the answer? Well if you haven’t already taken the step forward, do so now. Start imagining a different future for media. Read some of the great commentators out there who are thinking and acting on new ways of doing things (I recommend Buzz Machine, ReadWriteWeb, Econsultancy, Only Dead Fish and Mashable, for starters).

And (here comes the self-promoting plug) get some digital training.

And maybe look at committing to something even more intensive that ties into your commercial needs, for which I highly recommend the postgraduate course in Digital Publishing that I’m working on with Econsultancy and the Manchester Metropolitan University.

The main point is that to move forward we have to look forward, and that means not relying on business models and formats derived from legacy media.

I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave comments below.

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1. Weight

I did my back in a couple of weeks ago. It was so serious I couldn’t move out of bed for a couple of days. While I’m not certain what caused it, it can’t have helped that I was lugging a heavy backpack to and from my workplace. The backpack contained:

My laptop

A couple of heavy text books

Some writing pads and pens

Power leads for my laptop and iPhone

A couple of magazines I kept meaning to read but never got round to

With my back continuing to give me problems, reducing my daily carrying weight is becoming less a matter of convenience and more a matter of necessity. This must have been around 7-8 pounds of gear I’d been straining my back with. The iPad could conceivably fit all of this into one small package that weighs just 1.5 pounds (0.68kg).

2. Form factor

Since the iPad launched I’ve started thinking how I actually use my laptop on the go, and whether that keyboard is really necessary. I’ve discovered that it isn’t. When I’m travelling by train, I’m usually taking my computer along with me to carry my powerpoint presentations, check my email and look at the web. I hardly every write documents on the go. Okay I’ll write the odd email, but that should be easily possible with the iPad’s on-screen keyboard.

I’ve also started noticing more and more scenes like the one below – people struggling to use their laptops while waiting for trains, buses, etc. This is clearly not comfortable, and surely not necessary.

3. The user experience

For me it’s all about the user experience, and I’m a big fan of Apple’s user interface (UI) design. Having lived with and loved the iPhone for over a year now, I’m convinced the iPad is going to feel even better, with a bigger screen and more exciting native apps

According to Apple the best iPad applications will ‘downplay application UI so that the focus is on content; present content in beautiful, often realistic ways; and take full advantage of device capabilities to enable enhanced interaction.’ Sounds great to me.

So what do you think – are those good enough reasons to need an iPad? Or am I just persuading myself because I merely want one? Please leave me your thoughts in the comments below.