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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
Is SI’s Dazzling Tablet Mag The Future of ‘Print’? When Sports Illustrated group editor Terry McDonell and technology partner Wonderfactory founder David Link embarked on the project in September they were trying to maintain the curated ethos of the magazine with the user-control that interactivity allowed, even demanded. All of a given SI issue will be in a Tablet issue, but there will also be additional multimedia and Web-like material as well as customized areas that are determined by the reader. They did a three-minute promotional video (not the one above) that impressed the Time Warner board enough to get a green light on further development and focus group testing. According to real world testers, the novel interface moves were easy to learn. “About 90% of the interface people figured out by themselves,” says Link. McDonell says they wanted to use the familiar vocabulary of magazine consumption as a base they then could riff on in new ways that the user still could follow. “That is why we turn pages instead of scrolling – which is a good thing,” he says. An interactive pop-up wheel stays with the reader wherever he is to perform aggregation and content sharing tasks. The reader can move seamlessly between a lean-in sort of interactivity and a lean-back absorption of media. “We wanted to make it a really enjoyable reading experience," says McDonell. While the aim here was to keep one foot planted firmly in the familiar world of magazine experiences, it was just as important to redefine the function of a magazine. McDonell sees a Tablet-ized version of the magazine as a tool and an entertainment that a user could bring to the sports venue to enhance that live experience by recording their own box scores or referencing other games. They even envision building interactive games into the magazine itself. The SI Tablet demo is part of a larger plan for print publishers to take their digital destiny into their own hands in coming years and to be less dependent on specific technologies and hardware makers. According to reports, Time Inc. EVP John Squires soon will be spinning off from the company to head a consortium of print publishers who will be creating digital newsstands that distribute this kind of multiplatform product. Most magazine and newspaper publishers want a device that is more versatile than the Kindle but they also want a business model that is more advantageous to them than Amazon’s notoriously lopsided deal structures. The good news from the focus group is that they like the product and they seem eager to support the business models. One interactive ad was so attractive McDonell recalls hearing a tester say something he had never heard in a focus group before – ‘’Can we go back to that ad?’” But perhaps more to the point for a beleaguered print industry struggling for new models, the test audience said the magic words. “When we asked them if they would pay for this, they said ‘absolutely.’” In fact, most testers said they would want both the print and Tablet versions. Well, of course, there is nothing for anyone to pay for yet (except perhaps R&D by Time Warner), because this demo is shooting toward a next-gen tablet and eReader technology that isn’t here yet. “We wanted to anticipate the coming upgrades with technology beyond the Kindle,” says McDonell. SI clearly is developing in advance of current technology. The rumors of an iPhone-like Apple Tablet remain just that, rumors. Color eReaders using e-ink are at least a year away, and they won’t be as lush as an LCD. SI developed the Tablet project expecting that the platform could be easily resized and usable on a range of touch screen devices. Technically, the technology is already here to support the project, in that the demo was running on a current touch screen device and Windows 7, which supports multitouch interfaces. The challenge will be bringing these devices down in size, weight and cost so consumers can justify yet another gadget expenditure. As we have commented here before, the problem with the eReader model for newspapers and magazines is that its most obvious beneficiaries are -- well -- newspapers and magazines. The models help them remain more relevant and profitable in a digital age. Whether the benefit is as clear to consumers is anyone’s guess. This demo does suggest, however, that the industry is starting to recognize that it will have to make a much better case with consumers than they have in the past in trying to move them onto new platforms. SI Tablet at least starts to re-imagine (not repurpose) the magazine brand, not just the magazine itself. If magazine brands can start thinking of themselves as unique portable experiences and even services, on these platforms, then they finally have a credible stake in the digital future If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
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