MAGCULTURE.COM / BLOG

EDO/BSME event: What’s on your iPad? 

Apple unveiled the first iPad ad during the Oscar ceremony yesterday.

First up, disclosure: as EDO chair I helped set up last week’s combined EDO/BSME panel discussion about digital publishing. It was originally scheduled for last November, but the delay allowed the iPad announcement and subsequent speculation to convert an important subject into an essential one. It also allowed me to hand over the role of EDO chair to Simon Esterson, and meant I was in the audience at LCF and able to write this review.

The iPad has clearly focused magazine creatives. This was by far the best attended EDO event yet – 200 people, roughly split 50-50 between the design and editorial made it along.

A quick overview of what each speaker said:

David Rowan, Kate Creasey, Juliet Warkentin, Jon Hill and William Owen.

Jon Hill, design director of The Times, spoke of his initial frustration with web design, comparing the current state to the way newspapers looked fifty years ago. He pointed out the flexibility available to him when designing the printed edition just wasn’t available on the templated web pages he had to work with. There was little scope for adaptation or mischief – he gave a lovely example of a Times front page about the financial crisis being underlined by a run of economic figures at the bottom of the page that ended with a final figure, a vital football score. That might not sound great when explained in words but the page when shown demonstrated one of those qualities we take for granted in print. The make up of the page had an authority that allowed the reader to identify the throw-away joke as a joke rather than a mistake. Not only are we used to seeing random news mixed up on newspaper web pages, but even if something similarly as light of touch was attempted online it would more likely appear to be a mistake than a diversion.

Hill’s initial problems with the medium have disappeared as he’s come to terms with what is possible online. He showed some infographics that are in development, and hinted at a complete redesign of the Times site, though it appeared there were no plans for iPad-specific projects at this stage.

His summary:
• Be brave. Get involved.
• Edit. Tell stories.
• Values. Stick to them.
• Skills. Use them.
• Have fun – it is.

Kate Creasey, editor of Cosmopolitan.co.uk made several interesting points about her younger audience and their reliance on digital channels. She reminded us that the teen magazine market had all but ended, and that we need to pay attention to how audiences access the web. Two thirds of her users feel stressed when without the internet; four out of five of under 25 year olds use their mobiles to access the web during meal time. And the most important issue,for her in relation to the iPad, was that most of her audience don’t desire the iPhone. They have/aspire to the Blackberry instead – begging the question which tablet should Cosmo aim for?

Her summary:
• Know how your audience is accessing the internet (ie which devices)
• Forget about ads, look at other revenue streams, ecommerce.
• Be clear what each format can achieve.
• Be agile! Keep up with the game.

William Owen, director, Made By Many, gave a typically strong but sceptical view of magazine publishing, warning that the iPad was not the magic solution to publishings ills. There was a danger, he explained, that it would encourage people to stick with the old business models rather than adapt for the future. He showed the very nice Burberry ‘Art of the Trench’ social network project as an example of how social networks can result in compelling content, and rightly criticised Interview’s recent iPhone app for using a ‘limited, top-down editorial approach’. ‘The Art of the Trench’ was an expensive project for Burberry to create but cut out the whole media spend – in other words magazine ad spend.

His summary:
• Audience participation. Cut out media spend, create content online and let people join in.
• Innovation around the brand. Events and other brand extensions.
• Cross-media collaboration. Don’t use the web to drive magazines, use the magazine to drive the web.
• Launch and learn. Do a lot of things and see what works.

David Rowan, Editor UK Wired was the one speaker who professed excitment about the iPad. He showed Scott Dadich’s iPad demo created for the US edition of Wired, and spoke of Condé Nast’s desire to lead this area. US Wired will be launching a fully devloped iPad app in June this year, followed by smaller apps for GQ, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Glamour.

He alone spoke of the issue around actually creating material for the iPad, touching on the need to prepare content for two channels at once, to ensure designs can work in portrait and landscape modes, and the problems of quality control. Print standards are very high – you can’t just bung in lo-res video and audio, they have to match the expectations of the audience or you’ll damage your brand. He highlighted some of the nitty gritty – the need for meta-tags in all text to make digital search easy – and asked the question how do I proof digital content? He brought some good magazine-orientated observations to the discussion, centring inevitably perhaps on cost in terms of finance, resource and time. But he professed himself enthusiastic and positive despite the obvious hurdles .

His summary:
• The fittest survive. Reskill now.
• Money is needed to maintain quality.
• Learn about meta data.
• Think games/community.
• Let Condé Nast do the learning – be a follower.

So, perhaps the one thing the participants agreed on was that the iPad is not the magic answer on its own. An ironic situation given it’s the device that seems to have galvanised the industry to digital action, judging by the attendance figures at the event. Plenty of publishers seem to be dipping their toe in, commissioning demos, seeing what the iPad could do for them, but only Condé Nast have confirmed their intentions. Most competitors appear content to watch what they do, and CN are happy to be seen as the leaders here.

It’s worth noting that in the TV ad, above, the only publication included among the movies, books, emails and photos was the New York Times. No Wired or other CN title. While we’re all getting excited about the device, it appears Apple are looking less to our industry than to others more prepared to invest, but also more easily assimilated.

The magazine industry is a particularly print-orientated one. That might sound absurdly obvious, but it’s worth pointing out that despite numerous attempts by magazine makers to move into various parts of the digital world there’s been little success. From a design perspective, the restrictions Jon Hill mentioned have been a major hinderance, and led to content being poured into basic templates that leave every magazine site looking the same.

There are exceptions – it’s traditional to mention The Guardian website at this point. But boy did that take investment, and can’t stand still. Their iPhone app got a mention during questions after the discussion, and that remains my favourite piece of digitally accessible, updated content. It’s the first time I’ve seen a key factor succesfully addressed, that being the balance between publisher control and user control. The app provides a shortened, mediated Guardian point of view that is unmistakenly theirs, but also allows the user to set certain parameters and choices. It’s a small app, highly templated to suit the iPhone, but shows what can be done with intelligent content and planning. Like the main Guardian website, the investment vs income equation means the app can only be seen as an investment in brand rather than a revenue generator.

It’s easy to understand why as an industry we’re looking for so much from the iPad. These are hards times for us, regardless of any digital competition. We want excitement, good news, and we’re not getting it from new launches or sales increases. Every conversation about magazines today includes a brief iPad section – the subject alone is driving things forward. That’s a great thing.

The iPad comes from a familiar source, our beloved Apple, without whom etc, there is an easy mental jump from buying music and apps from our iPhone to buying magazines for an iPad, and those demo videos from Wired, Sports Illustrated and Berg make good viewing. We should be excited about the possibilities here. I’ll be pre-ordering an iPad as soon as they let me. But it’s arrival isn’t going to change things overnight.

What it will do is speed things up, and I hope broaden the understanding that we are talking about more than a shift from print to a single new device, but rather a whole new way of approaching and making content. As Rowan reminded us, there are other devices out there, and there is a danger that the iPad encourages us to, as panel chair Juliet Warkentin put it, ‘think inside the box’. We need to think outside the box, stop regarding digital as a creatively impaired medium and see whether the new devices really will let us – designers and editors – start applying our understanding of content to the digital realm.

This is going to exciting, there are plenty of twists and turns ahead, but at least things are moving.

UPDATE: Mark Porter reviews the same event.

UPDATE II: Eye magazine’s review.