You say you want a revolution: magazine publishers and their pipe dream of a tablet savior
The following clip from Josh Gordon's Ad Sales Blog typifies the most troubling aspect of the digital tablet touchscreen slate fever that's taken hold of the magazine industry: an obsession with output.
You see it everywhere - in blog posts, tweets, articles, videos, conferences, webcasts, segments on the nightly news - the tablet (whatever that might actually be) will save print publishing.
I certainly understand the attraction - these things are damn sexy and look damn fun to play with. I also see how a device similar to the prototypes embedded across the web could make it easier for traditional print design to transition to the digital world (and why that makes publishers as happy as a pig in shit).
Still, print publishers are kidding themselves if they think a device - even a device as sexy and mysterious as Apple's unicorn slate tablet - comes at all close to addressing the real troubles that plague legacy publishing operations.
What these publishers are completely blind to is the real revolution that's underway. It's NOT a revolution of outputs. It's NOT a revolution of digital over analog. It's NOT a revolution of pixels over paper.
IT IS a revolution of decentralized, network oriented, peer to peer communication over hierarchical, command and control, one to many editorial voice.
IT IS an evolution of the reader into the user, the consumer into the producer.
IT IS the beginning of an era where people will be less interested in pre-defined, pre-packaged, pre-made media experiences - no matter how slick.
No friends, the real change happening has little to do with the output device. The true revolution in the magazine industry will be found (if there is in fact one to be found) in the ways publishing enterprises do what they do. Simply redirecting the current media funnel to a new flashy, slick, sexy, mysterious, popular device is not gonna cut it.
In a real revolution publishers would acknowledge that an issue's life is just starting when it's put to bed.
In a real revolution publishers would acknowledge that the most important work starts after the copy is finalized, the design signed off on, the files sent to production, and the cover is on the news stand.
In a real revolution revolution publishers would show some sign that they realize that the thing they make - their magazine - is a social object. If that social object is to survive in the digital wild it will need their care, their participation, their continuing attention and love.
In a real revolution publishers would stop concentrating on the things that help them keep their organization the way it always has been and start embracing the things that scare them.
In a real revolution publishers would be developing technologies that demonstrate that they understand how listening is now more important than speaking.
So to all the excited magazine publishers in the world I say this: enjoy the high while it lasts - get your skiff on, your tablet greased, your slate polished - this may be the last little bump you get before the terrible groaning reality of morning sets in and you have to start making real choices.
By June of this year we will be having a very different discussion about interactive magazines. By then, the behind the scenes work going on in several areas will come together enabling the printed magazine to evolve into its inevitable digital form. Soon content publishers, content distribution companies, and hardware technology companies, working on different pieces of the puzzle, will have their pieces on the table. Once connected, a new way to look at magazine content and how it is delivered will emerge and the skeptics of digital magazines will need to reconsider their views. Read more at jgordon5.typepad.com
4 Comments
I like what you say about how a lot of content distribution is now decentralized, peer to peer, and often assembled by users not publishers. I agree with you on all that. But I do not believe this will become the whole enchilada.
There are many content experiences that are better consumed in a designed and packaged form. Many years ago I worked on a project to develop programming for Time Warner’s Cube system. At the time, many thought consumers would watch more TV shows it they could pick how the shows ended. This was a massive flop. Some experiences loose value when they are self directed. Also, if you ae new to a topic an expereince guided by an editor can be far mroe valuble.
Decentralized, network oriented, peer to peer communication is good…but not or everything.
Designed prepackaged media environments are good…but not for everything.
If there is one thing we have learned about the digital media world is that choice is king. Consumers are going to choose what works best for their specific needs.
Bring on the digital readers!
I completely agree that user assembled experiences will never be the “whole enchilada” but I do think they will increasingly become the norm. My GUESS is that the open, fragmented, user assembled, stream model will soon (within the next 10 years perhaps) be the primary way media is experienced while the heavily planned, packaged, rigid, issue based, editorial calendar model will begin to seem solipsistic, closed, and unresponsive to external stimulation — Rocks amidst a thriving ecology of interaction; cold and dead artifacts that once flowed with a molten intensity yet now have cooled to the point where from time to time they provide a fleeting utility, but rarely ignite true wonder.
What I’m waiting to see isn’t the next new reader to hit the market - I’m waiting to see the monthly magazine that ditches it’s editorial calendar and produces each issue based on the responses and reactions to the last. I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that values emergence, innovation and improvisation as primary editorial methodologies. I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that realizes they are participants in a larger conversation and not just reading scrolls from the mountain top. I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that recognizes that selling display ads will never fully fund the work they do and starts to truly nurture the actual relationships between their constituents. And most of all I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that can... more
I completely agree that user assembled experiences will never be the “whole enchilada” but I do think they will increasingly become the norm. My GUESS is that the open, fragmented, user assembled, stream model will soon (within the next 10 years perhaps) be the primary way media is experienced while the heavily planned, packaged, rigid, issue based, editorial calendar model will begin to seem solipsistic, closed, and unresponsive to external stimulation — Rocks amidst a thriving ecology of interaction; cold and dead artifacts that once flowed with a molten intensity yet now have cooled to the point where from time to time they provide a fleeting utility, but rarely ignite true wonder.
What I’m waiting to see isn’t the next new reader to hit the market - I’m waiting to see the monthly magazine that ditches it’s editorial calendar and produces each issue based on the responses and reactions to the last. I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that values emergence, innovation and improvisation as primary editorial methodologies. I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that realizes they are participants in a larger conversation and not just reading scrolls from the mountain top. I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that recognizes that selling display ads will never fully fund the work they do and starts to truly nurture the actual relationships between their constituents. And most of all I’m waiting for the monthly magazine that can (with quickness and agility) internally produce the multitude of of outputs, platforms, and streams in which all of this takes place
The change that necessitates these kinds of reactions from publishers really has nothing to do with print or digital technology - this is social and cultural change that may be technologically driven, yet is not purely technological in its nature. Advancing technology is a cause and not an effect - it’s a red herring that is distracting publishers from the truly amazing sociocultural shifting at work.
My advice to publishers - for whatever it’s worth - is to stop obsessing over technology and start obsessing over how that technology is affecting people. After all, the real change isn’t in people’s hands - it’s in their heads.
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