Robot Loves Kitten

The Guardian has a slick-looking iPhone app that has most of the features I think any news site should have. So, I have to ask: why can’t your website have these great features?

Reading between the lines, I think the brunt of corporate politics incinerating staff enthusiasm might have something to do with it. R&D platforms are fun because they’re fresh and new, but you’d better find a way to migrate these improvements into your flagship products, otherwise, you’re toast

Big publishers Time, Hearst, Conde Nast, et al. announced their JV to build an iTunes for digital magazines today. Since there are more smart people around, I’m hopeful that something might come of this. The big, burly print mag folk won’t recognize, but Web designers struggle with our templates all the time. We want to create a more magazine-like experience, too. We just have a hard time finding the time these days.

So, does this JV have a chance? Well, it’s a JV, to start with, so that’s a strike against it. We don’t know much about what they’re going to be doing, since all we’ve got are soundbites from CEOs that couldn’t pick a Kindle off a bookshelf, but there’s a few key driving points.

First, distribution. I think this is the big worry, especially since it dovetails with Eric’s TechCrunch post about the importance of customer data. Publishers lost control when distribution and warehousing started consolidating in the past 10 years or so (could be 20). This was really scary, as the portal to the land of the customer began to shrink and disappear. Now, Apple, Google and Facebook control the portals to customer land, but because things are digital now, publishers still have a chance to wedge their foot in the door via their own apps (think Kindle’s iphone app).

It’s good to focus on controlling access to customers, but the breadth of platforms they are talking about covering is a nightmare to develop for, leading to least common denominator solutions that won’t bowl anyone over. And if customers think it sucks, well …

Customer data is a tough one. Advertising, especially digital, have been migrating to behavioral and contextual targeting, which operates best on the largest possible scale. Brand ads are frankly, becoming quaint. Brand ads were important when you couldn’t reach the consumer before their purchase; today it’s easy.

Why would I place a magazine ad when I have Facebook and Twitter pages, an iPhone game, and a huge search marketing budget? I’m working my community, I’m working potential customers via search, I’m playing games, I’m handing out coupons and contest prizes. I am out there, swinging away. What’s a magazine gonna do for me?

I think brand advertising is dead. What could possibly replace it? I don’t know.

Dual revenue models: To me, this is the elephant in the room. There is a nation of digerati out there who live in a bipolar world — the stuff you pay for, and the stuff you get for free with advertising. Nobody does both. Why would I pay for something, so you can then sell me out to some advertisers? I am convinced this is a dying business model, and should frankly, be unnecessary given zero marginal-cost digital distribution.

As long as publishers insist on models that require dual revenue streams, they will always be outflanked by their web & tech brethren. And that means, eventually, they will all die.

Business and enthusiast titles have a future. Both these groups have rabid communities and potential to go really deep with databases, games, news, etc. It’s lifestyle mags that are the problem. They don’t do anything, and existed almost primarily to serve up expensive brand ads. We knew they sucked, but they were all we had.

Now we know better. Do the publishers?

The thing I’m probably most worried about when it comes to the future of all this media is that, knowingly or not, these companies are moving from a past of plentitude, where they enjoyed two overlapping revenue streams, to a single-stream future.

I don’t see any of these new media experiments, regardless of platform, supporting the traditional double-dip of subscription and advertising revenues. And it’s probably safe to say that the two revenue models are themselves diverging, advertising moving toward advanced behavioral targeting, and subscriptions moving toward micropayments, making it even harder to blend them successfully together into a lux, Conde Nast-style cocktail of profits.

The following is an interesting presentation about outsourcing production tasks. This likely won’t work for smaller orgs, but it might get you thinking about ways to trim time and money by tweaking your processes. Think Pareto Priniciple, wherein 80% of effects come from 20% of causes — i.e., keeping it simple can still deliver most of the benefits.

Newspaper Outsourcing –

So, how are you going to make a better, profitable product in a more competitive future where you’re making less money? It’s a tough question. The landscape’s changed forever.

I’ve seen several recommendations for media companies to go mobile lately, like in this commitments post. Here’s why you shouldn’t listen to them.

There are many mobile platforms, each of which has its own language and quirks. Then there’s the phones and their different screen sizes. Mobile apps are difficult and expensive, and you’re frankly not ready to deal with all that. You need to be interacting via mobile platforms, not debugging software.

What you need is a mobile strategy, not an app. Why? Because you already have a mobile platform that works on all mobile platforms, and includes multimedia and geo-location data. Yeah, it’s way cool. It’s called your Twitter account.

Did I mention it’s free?