From MIN:

Flipboard Offering Publishers Magazine-Like iPad Feed Experience
Monday, December 6, 2010
Steve Smith

How ironic that a start-up that aggregates and formats simple social media and RSS feeds onto the iPad is helping magazines look more magazine-like on the tablet platform. But the buzz-fueled aggregation app Flipboard is doing exactly that with inaugural partners Bon Appétit, Washington Post Magazine and Lonely Planet. In an effort to ‘iPadify’ shared content from major media partners, Flipboard is creating a more sophisticated layout framework for articles that are fed into its app. Flipboard offers a unique system that it calls a ‘social magazine,’ which turns RSS, Twitter and Facebook feeds into neatly laid out illustrated pages that literally flip to advance and pop-up fuller article excerpts in a window with accompanying image. The new partnership wit media companies takes that elegance to the next level. When a user double taps on an article from a partner like Bon Appétit or ABC News, the reader gets a multi-page rendition of the article in a magazine-like layout, including full page ads.

“We believe the timeless principles of print can enhance the social media experience, not only to make content more discoverable but also to make it easier to read,” says Flipboard CEO Mike McCue. Flipboard had been rumored to be in conversations with media companies about ways to help them monetize the feeds that Flipboard uses to populate its product. Flipboard is working with ad agency OMD to test the full page ads that occupy these enhanced articles. Initial sponsors include Pepsi, Gatorade, Infiniti, Showtime and Levi’s.

In our use of the featured Flipboard pages, the system did produce very readable and engaging page designs. The excerpts click through to a richer environment that is closer to the typical magazine app than it is to a Web site, to which Flipbook pages often link. The full-page ads generally have been well-tuned to the touch and feel strengths of the platform. Best of all, Flipboard does all of this while retaining its signature snappiness. The app has always done a very good job of caching the most likely next pages a user will tap and so creating a more seamless flipping experience.

Overall, Flipboard appears to be making good on its earlier promise to give something back to the media partners on whose content its app relies. This is an interesting new way to syndicate content into a touch-based tablet ecosystem that lets publishers keep a handle on the ways in which their content is presented, and keep their fingers in the revenue stream it might produce. 

Interesting points relating to the IPad by Steve Smith of MIN Online in his column, Eye on Digital Media:

IPad Reality Check

Whether the tablet platform is in fact the game changer many publishers
want it to be, it is easy to let the glare of the iPad blind us
to some realities of the platform that are apparent to those of us who
have used the device extensively since day one.

1. The iPad will change your Web strategy. At a recent min Webinar
on magazines developing for e-books and tablets, I was surprised to see
that excitement for the iPad exposed the ongoing frustrations publishers
have with the Web. Low user engagement, brand dilution, poor monetization, and poor
design sense all seemed to characterize the experience of many magazines on the Web.
Condé Nast vp/editorial operations Rick Levine showed a chart comparing the monthly
time spent with Gentlemen's Quarterly in print, online, and in the iPhone app. For the
first three issues that GQ appeared on the iPhone, its users spent about 70 minutes per
issue, on par with the print GQ and about five times longer than time spent per unique
user at gq.com. If these new mobile screens take off, publishers will be rethinking and
perhaps scaling back the Web strategies they have been developing for years.

2. Not so fast. Apps now compete with the Web. One of the unanticipated consequences
of the tablet platform's larger screen is that full Web browsing is now much more viable
than it was on smart phones. The tablet format diminishes that rationale for an app and
so a publisher's branded magazine app will compete with its own Web site.
Entertainment Weekly has tried to recognize the divide by integrating a Web site
viewer with its good Must List app. USA Today engages the problem by re-engineering
its Web content so thoroughly into a better touch-driven experience in the app that
you don't bother hitting the brand on the Web.

3. The ads on the iPad suck. I am not sure why these haven't been raised yet. Most
of the early ad units in magazine apps rely almost entirely on the impact of the original
print ad or pull in a tv spot. There are very few consumer brand apps except for
a forgettable trifle from The Gap and a more ambitious athlete trainer from Nike. The
real opportunity for publishers with in-app advertising is to develop mini-apps for
clients that run within the media’s app and truly leverage the touch and multimedia
capabilities of the format.

4. Cost and standardization will be the choke points to adoption of tablet magazines.
Publishers appear to be digging in their heels over price and seem ready to
defy the loud consumer sentiment against high single-issue pricing. If "Tablet-ized"
magazines are going to keep "enhanced" pricing for "enhanced" iPad magazines, they
need to make a much better case for where they are adding the value.

Being on the iPad with some cool navigation and added videos or little spinning
twirly things does not earn a publisher multiples more than what a reader pays for a
subscription. Publishers need to start thinking about including tangible assets like
special subscriber-only utility apps or in-app games and puzzles. And speaking of
spinning twirly things...stop reinventing the wheel. It is irritating and ultimately
counterproductive to have readers learn a new interface for every digital magazine.
The bottom-line lesson that overarches all of the above is that publishers should not
mistake the Tablet app environment as a full break with the past. Users are bringing
certain expectations for pricing and usability that are informed by a decade of Web
experience. Magazine apps have to share a platform with the Web, and what your brand
does on the tablet platform will have to work in concert with print and Web strategies.
If you think that the iPad promises a simple "reset" of the digital relationship
between publishers and readers, then think harder.

 

From MinOnline. Read Full Story here

Hearst Reveals Skiff E-Reader

By Steve Smith

The e-reader field is getting more crowded by the day. Hearst subsidiary Skiff offered up the specs and first images of its portable digital reading device before the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was set to launch this week in Las Vegas. The Skiff Reader will try to distinguish itself from the Kindle, nook, Sony eReader, QUE and other e-ink devices with size and portability. The 9 x 11-inch unit will hold an 11.5-inch (measured diagonally) display, which does out-size the large Kindle DX and the Plastic Logic QUE. (More images are below.) This display uses a special ‘metal foil’ technology that offers touch screen interaction but does not require a glass protective coating. The 1200 x 1600 resolution screen will run at 174 dots-per-inch, which should appeal to print newspaper and magazine publishers looking for greater detail. The screen is still black and white, however, and it remains to be seen how quickly an e-ink display at such high resolution can refresh itself as it changes pages. One of the chief frustrations of the e-ink devices is their very sluggish performance and muddy display of images.

The Skiff Reader is putting a premium on paper-like portability. It claims to weigh just above a pound. The battery is expected to last a week under standard usage. The device also sports 3G and WiFi wireless connectivity as well as a USB port for side-loading content from a PC.

The Hearst-owned company is putting print publishers front and center in this model. The company says the Skiff will access an online store of newspapers, magazines, books, blogs and other content from a range of publishers. The Skiff is promising to host print brands with unique design attributes, interactive elements, and dynamic content updating “that help publishers differentiate themselves and attract subscribers and advertisers,” the company said in its statement.

Sprint will provide the cellular network for downloading content almost anywhere, but the wireless carrier will also provide a distribution channel. Unlike the Amazon Kindle (available online only), the nook (available in Barnes & Noble) or the Sony eReader (in bookstores), the Skiff will leverage Sprint’s 1,000 phone retail outlets. Other distribution channels will be announced later, as will pricing and date of release.

Finding the right distribution mechanism for the Skiff could prove its toughest challenge. Obviously, the B&N venue would favor its own device, even if it did open itself to multiple vendors. Borders Books retail stores have been featuring the Sony devices for some time. And Skiff has no brand recognition of its own with which to build much of an online draw to an e-commerce site. Relying on a tech provider like Sprint is dubious, since wireless carriers do not have expertise in selling content-centric devices. In fact, content partners to the major carriers have long complained how poorly these tech-driven companies merchandize mobile content.

To make matters worse, all of the e-ink readers are about to be eclipsed by the relentless hype surrounding the rumored release of an Apple tablet, which many expect to be announced later this month.

Nevertheless, the march of the e-reader devices continues, with voice-recognition innovator Ray Kurzweil announcing a new color e-reader, the "Blio," today at CES.

Sit back and watch the fragmentation begin.