mturro » magazines

@Khoi Vinn’s Beautiful Mistake

Mike Turro — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:58:37 +0000

Khoi Vinn is absolutely right–about the obvious, most agreed upon points of failure in the current crop of iPad magazines. You can’t share from them (though from some you can), they are lacking integrated subscription models (though some are not), and they are bloated and take too long to download (though some are light and download fairly quickly). He is also spot on with regard to the way Adobe and other software vendors prey on publishers and sell them on the notion that difficult change is nothing more than a bad dream–but that’s another post entirely. Khoi’s mistake (I call it beautiful because it seems logical and there is no hard evidence that it is in fact a mistake) is his apparent assumption that the magazine form–collected articles, enveloped by an informed editorial vision, and bound by issue–is something of a one medium pony. While that model was indeed birthed by the technology of the press and it’s pace dictated by the ebb and flow of the post it’s not at all clear that print is the only environment it can live in. It may be that the networked, digital, real time world–a world built and maintained by an exponentially increasing degree of choice–actually demands a slower, focused, slightly out of time, “print-centric” option as a balance.

The fact of the matter is that the mode of reading that a magazine represents is a mode that people are decreasingly interested in, that is making less and less sense as we forge further into this century, and that makes almost no sense on a tablet. As usual, these publishers require users to dive into environments that only negligibly acknowledge the world outside of their brand, if at all — a problem that’s abetted and exacerbated by the full-screen, single-window posture of all iPad software. In a media world that looks increasingly like the busy downtown heart of a city — with innumerable activities, events and alternative sources of distraction around you — these apps demand that you confine yourself to a remote, suburban cul-de-sac.

I find it peculiar that in the sped up, distracted, busy downtown heart of the city that is our media environment Khoi’s prescription for success is to give the inundated reader more of the same. If we accept that the broad mission of the publisher is to enlighten and inform the reader is it not incumbent upon that publisher to try and penetrate this (social) media noise with something approximating a signal? Shouldn’t the smart publisher be the proprietor of the quiet and coherent cafe around the corner? Shouldn’t the aim of the magazine in the digital world be to pull passersby out of the bright lights of Naked Cowboy Times Square and into a quiet space where ideas can be presented for consideration in a focused and structured way? Just like slow food, shouldn’t there be a place for slow media? Undoubtedly there will be those who read these words and say “Yes. There is a place for slow media–print.” Khoi himself indicates this in the mention of his paid and seemingly satisfying subscription to the printed New Yorker. While I agree that print is indeed a wonderful and slow medium that quite effectively provides the sort of experience I describe above it is also a very expensive and elitist medium. While digital technologies like magcloud have made print a bit more accessible, it is still no match for digital media as an egalitarian platform for independent and fringe voices. Beyond that it is a near certainty that many of the titles currently using the technology of ink on paper will not be able to sustain that for too much longer. Exactly when the cost of manufacturing print will exceed the value it brings to readers is anybody’s guess, but any medium that relies so heavily on cheap and available natural resources such as oil and pulp is volatile to say the least. Without a doubt the future of magazines–both as an industry and a publishing framework–is uncertain. However, to write off the reading experience provided by a good magazine as a relic of the print world is extremely shortsighted. When Khoi offhandedly and anecdotally declares “that the mode of reading that a magazine represents is a mode that people are decreasingly interested in” he is assuming (though he does give a slight nod to the contrary) that the current use patterns of the web’s most emphatic users (also iPad’s early adopters) are an indication of the eventual use patterns of the population of tablet users as a whole. Khoi is certainly a smart guy, but it may be a bit early to make that call. If the success of the iPad says anything it’s that the rush to diffused, unbound, atomized content pieces may have been a bit of a bubble itself. Even Flipboard–the app that Khoi himself singles out as “more of a window to the world at large” can be seen as a reaction to the ethereal, unbound, drifting, unfocused, overwhelming content cloud. That Flipboard takes the magazine as its prime metaphor is quite telling–even if they have stripped the form of its most compelling (perhaps even defining) components. The solution that Flipboard provides is the same as your traditional magazine–coherence. It’s prime directive is to create meaning from a vast ocean of data–with an algorithm. Neat trick for sure, but the meaning it’s creating is farcically specific, tragically ephemeral, and ultimately useless. In trying to focus the deluge of data for me it neither empowers me with the filtering skills I’ll need if/when I need to deal directly with the raw data nor challenges me with the intellectual perspective inherent in the traditional editorial model. While tools like Flipboard are compelling to a certain extent, the fact that these types of tools are engineered in a web first way gives me pause. In the Flipboard world the human is simply a datapoint–another binary instance in the technology’s evolving web of complexity and choice. Everyday more of these instances, more perspectives, more images, more sounds, more words stumble into the web and enter the pool of potential interactions. This pool is deep and wide and a whole lot of fun to dive into. We can easily drift into anywhere or anyone at anytime. It is indeed a serendipity engine. Yet when confronted with so much fluid data it’s important that we also have the choice to opt out–to slow down lest we float aimlessly away link by link. If we engineer ourselves beyond that point–if we only build systems and tools that respond to the web’s need for us to lust after information and connection, and we neglect the time honored tools of slow reflection, we run the risk of slipping from users to used.

There’s no crying in iPad magazine publishing…

Mike Turro — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:44:04 +0000

Let’s be clear about something: this idea that magazine publishers are hesitant to get into a relationship with Apple because the publishers won’t be able to “control the consumer relationship” is essentially horse-shit.

While I’m not sure how many publishers are actually operating under that assumption (would not be surprised if it were an over done media meme), I am sure that those who are might as well pack up and go home now - they don’t understand what’s happening and quite possibly never will.

While it is true that the data that Apple provides about iTunes users is somewhat sparse it’s a cop-out to point to that as a flaw in the system. After all, how much does Vanity Fair know about the guy who paid cash for a copy of their rag at the train station?

To the magazine publishers who do feel as if Apple somehow owes them more data I say this: grow a pair. This is the 21st century. We can do amazing things. We can start a million conversations today. We can know more about the folks reading our iPad editions than Apple does. We can get so deep into our reader’s social graphs that Apple will come asking us for data.

So please stop thinking of your readers as numbers, names, addresses. These are people - talk to them. You may be surprised what there is to learn.

[As a side note: I downloaded the Vanity Fair iPad edition and it is not revolting! It’s fairly well done with appropriate room for improvement - pretty much what you expect at this stage in the game.]

Clipped from mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

There are still unresolved questions about the iPad for publishers. Vanity Fair knows the name and address of everyone who subscribes to its magazines, but it cannot get that data from Apple about iTunes buyers. That’s one reason the magazine industry is working on its own digital newsstand, so it can control the consumer relationship.Read more at mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

Why I don’t like Wired’s “iPad” demo.

Mike Turro — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:00:01 +0000

Aside from the usual problems I have with publishers getting all obsessed with output format something else about this beautiful demo really irks me: the fact that this thing will NOT run on an iPad. It’s an AIR/Flash/Adobe creation and I’m sure nobody needs reminding on the current status of the Apple/Adobe relationship. So, given that status, why would Wired partner with Adobe to make an app that may never run (properly) on the 800lb gorilla of the tablet space?

The answer is simple enough - Adobe OWNS print workflow. Working with Adobe means that Wired’s designers don’t really need to be pushed too far outside their comfort zone. In fact the designs you see in the video below started life as InDesign docs. In some ways this is a sensible move. Yet making sensible moves in nonsensical times may not always be smart.

In embracing Adobe as their tablet technology partner Wired is taking a rather large gamble that Flash’s iPhone export feature due in CS5 (which according to Apple Blog isn’t working in beta - http://theappleblog.com/2010/02/16/adobe-creative-suite-5-details-revealed/) will not only be accepted by Apple, but will work without incident. I don’t care how slick the design is - if the thing crashes or is slow or buggy overall experience will suffer. Based on personal past experience with Adobe’s code export features in other CS products I’d say the chances of the iPhone code being usable, let alone good, is remote at best. Add to all of this the rather high profiles of Wired, their parent company Conde Nast, and Apple and you’re not looking at your average everyday fail - this would be big time fail.

Clipped from www.businessinsider.com

See more at www.businessinsider.com

Print media as offline lust object… redux

Mike Turro — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:39:42 +0000

The following clip from Mental Floss features Wired Editor Chris Anderson giving his take on where magazines and print might head in a tablet driven digital world. Be sure to click through to the post and listen to the quick audio clip - in it he mirrors something I wrote two years ago: http://mturro.com/2008/01/22/print-media-as-offline-lust-object/

Clipped from www.mentalfloss.com

If you’re interested in the future of magazines, newspapers and books, you’re not going to want to miss a word of this 2 ½ minute answer to my question: What does the future of Wired look like: Print or online? His answer is not the usual cable-news talking head rat-a-tat, that’s for sure. After you listen to his answer, tell us what you think, _flossers! Are books and magazines here for good? Sound off in the comments below. Who’s already getting their magazine and newspaper subscriptions digitally? Who can’t wait to?
Read more at www.mentalfloss.com