Translation between media types is always messy, and despite coming across as appallingly short-sighted, it always seems that the default route is simply the mimicry of one media format being overlaid upon another. It should not come as any surprise, as forging ahead with new, and untested, ways of presenting content is not the "safe" option. Resorting to what has worked in the past is comforting to pencil pushers, and yet the Internet has completely altered the way people consume their content, including those people who are trying so hard to perform a direct translation of their analog format into the digital realm. Trying to put new wine into old bottles flies is simply not sustainable, and dangerous as well. Failing to innovate, those with the courage to do so will outpace their competitors who went with less risky options.
That was a lot of English prose to use in what is essentially an idea that says that duplicating the magazine experience on an iPad is goofy. Not to single out Apple's table device in particular, the thought holds true for the Android/Windows 8/ OSes, but I will stick with the iPad as my example platform of choice because a) I own the new iPad and b) it has Newsstand, which, yes I'm sure the other tablets will also have something similar, but I don't use them on a daily basis. And that's that.
I get The Economist in print, and as such I have access to the iPad version through Newsstand. When I first got access to it, I tended to read it on the iPad exclusively, unless I happen to be sitting at the kitchen table as I'd prefer any potential food/drink damage to happen to the throwaway print version. But reading The Economist has become more of a breakfast table affair now, as my primary consumption during the day has been from content on the web itself, as opposed to the more traditional magazine format. My use of the digital version has grown less with each passing day.
Everyone was very impressed when Wired released their iPad app, and for good reason; it was sleek, sexy, and tried to do something new with a format that has been with us for over one hundred years. But, at the same time, it was lipstick on a pig. It was still a magazine, still in the same layout, and no amount of media you could throw on a page would change the fact that it didn't really do anything new or different with the format. And, let's be honest for a moment, is there really a huge, untapped
audience that has ever read a magazine/newspaper and thought to
themselves, "Wow, there's a lot of great content here, but if only there
was some video." Not that having video buttressing an article is a bad
thing, just that its usefulness is grossly overrated in my opinion. The biggest problem with Wired on the iPad had to be that you had to download a hefty app every time a new issue arrived.
Newsstand sought to alleviate that last issue, but it's just a hidden "app" for magazines. Nothing has really changed since Wired tried out their experiment with the birth of tablet computing, it's just been slightly modified to be contained in its own little space as opposed to taking up home screen real estate (and, oddly enough, The Economist exists as a separate app on my iPhone even though Newsstand is an option). Like updating the Wired app with each new issue, you still have to download new content as it is issued.
The alternative is simply a straight web site optimized for iDevices/competing tablets. The walled garden of Apple's App Store was sealed off for Playboy magazine, so they circumvented the lack of having their content on the iPad by doing just this. Instead of loading up an app, you simply launch Safari and navigate to the appropriate URL, which you can bookmark on the home screen and use it just like another app if desired. Decidedly less sexy? Of course, and its missing some of the glitz and glamor that is available to those who code their magazines as apps, but it works, and it's completely useable and bound to get better as HTML5 matures.
Outside of Safari, I also consume "magazine"-type content via Flipboard and Instapaper. I use Instapaper more, as I'm always coming across articles I want to read, just not at the moment. I see a lot of potential in Flipboard though, and on the plus side it actually feels like a magazine, however the content is culled from a variety of different sources, and this is where it seems idea to me. Rarely do I personally spend any length of time on one news site. I'll bounce around, seeing which articles and headlines interest me. The magazine format on the iPad feels limiting because I'm within one particular magazing and have to jump between different apps to see anything different.
So what if Newsstand was Flipboard and simply aggregated stories from all the magazine sites that you have an interest in? It would be updated over the web as you browsed, no need to download "issues" or install an updated app on the device. You could add all the feeds you wanted and then have it displayed to you, perhaps being able to easily switch to an entire feed all at once in case you want to peruse more from a particular source? To my mind, this is a much more elegant solution, and the reason I'm starting to incorporate Flipboard more and more into my daily consumption habit.
The only big "if" in using something like the Flipboard process is how does one make money for the content that they generate using that system? Making money on the Internet has been the biggest question poised to humanity since the technological revolution began, and I cannot even begin to form an answer to that question. I just know that the format as it is now cannot continue, and is waiting for some daring innovation to disrupt the entire market.
Don't get left behind.
