As for advertisements, movies are no-brainers. Click on an ad for
Eclipse,
for example, view a trailer, then purchase tickets using Fandango. On
an iPad it’s a seamless process, one that holds the promise of actually
simplifying a reader’s life, instead of adding to the visual clutter,
and interrupting the experience of interacting with a magazine.
Warren
Buffet or Jimmy Buffet? Hot Studio had to develop the Zinio iPad app
for a range of magazines, understanding that the experience of reading The Economist would differ radically from Rolling Stone.As Dev sums up, “With the launch of the iPad, the magazine has been reborn.”
REBIRTH: WIRED ON THE IPAD
For
magazine publishers, the iPad holds out the promise of rebirth on a new
platform that offers deeper engagement, and a new way to sell ads, the
lifeblood of the publishing industry. For some publishers it’s a
development that may have come a year too late. According to the
Publishers Information Bureau, magazines lost 58,340 ad pages in 2009.
What does that mean for magazines? Death. Crain’s New York Business reports that 367 magazines closed in 2009, although that's down from 526 in 2008.
At Wired,
the flagship magazine for geek culture, creative director Scott Dadich
has breathed new life into the static format. Remember “convergence,”
that favorite buzzword of the 1990s print, video, photos, music,
interactivity, Web connectivity, mobility, the gestural interface. It’s
here, and it’s on the Wired Magazine App for the iPad.
Dadich
saw the iPad for the first time just like we did, with Apple’s
announcement on January 27. Within months, Dadich and his team at Wired launched the June issue, which promptly outsold the print version. The publishing world would never be the same.
Dadich was able to get up to speed so quickly because he and Wired
editor Chris Anderson had been working together for months before the
Apple hub-bub, building prototypes, creating digital experiments, and
thinking strategically about how a reader might engage with a magazine
in a tablet environment.
“At Wired we’re always asking, ‘How do
you best express the potential of ideas and technology,’” Dadich
explains. “So when it comes to a platform like the iPad, it’s important
that Wired walk the talk.”
For the 42 staffers at Wired,
including a design team of 7, that means the walls between print and
digital are erased. Instead of thinking of a magazine for print and a
magazine for the iPad, Dadich says the team tries to design a single
frame for content, no matter what its application.
A case in point, Dadich points to “the Will Film.” In August, Wired
featured Will Ferrell as its cover boy. Inside the print magazine,
elaborate photoshoots placed Ferrell in a science fiction fever dream
of flying cars, death rays and food in a pill. Buy the print magazine
and you get funny photos of Ferrell. On the iPad, you get that plus a
Will Ferrell movie. It’s short, it’s funny and it’s got great
production values. You can almost hear the dope slaps as magazine
publishers realize how high the bar for publishing content has been
raised by Wired for the iPad. “Oh great, now we're in the movie business!?”
Data point: The Wired Magazine App for iPad outsold the print version. With on-board video clips of Will Ferrell, he future’s funnier than ever.As
Dadich says, “We put a lot of effort and energy in to creating the
sets, lighting and wardrobe for our photoshoots. It’s an incremental
effort to take that and make it into a short film.”
In the
future, Dadich promises more along these lines, including, dynamic
data, Web connectivity and social sharing. As he says, “Content creates
conversation. Now, on the iPad we have a way of bringing conversation
into the content.”
On the strength of his success launching the Wired
iPad app, Dadich is now the executive director of digital magazine
development for Condé Nast magazines. Which means the lessons learned
producing the Wired iPad app will now be leveraged to the Condé Nast publishing empire as it transitions from print to pixels.
PRODUCTIVITY APPS: SOFTWARE DONE LIGHT
The
iPad and the iPad App Store have created an ecosystem that will
revolutionize the way software is designed and sold. No longer will
designers be forced to buy bloated, expensive, one-size-fits-all
software. Instead of a $599 sledgehammer to drive a tack, we'll be able
to buy a tack hammer. And the price: anywhere from free to $50. As of
this writing the most popular downloads on the App Store are
productivity apps. Apple’s Pages, Keynote and Numbers lead the way, and
at $9.99 each, why not? For consumers seeking to add functionality to
their iPad, it’s a no-brainer.