iPad May Be Death Knell To Print Magazines

[Trek2100]

It may be the beginning of a new trend, but the iPad is never, ever, going to kill print media. No matter how many iPads they sell, the population of iPad users will always be an exceedingly small fraction of the total audience available to print media.

Look how popular the Wii is, and yet there are only about 70 million sold. Even the 250 million iPods in the wild comprise a pretty small segment of the total print media audience. Of 6+ billion people on the planet, the amount who own iPods or Wiis is an awfully small number. Print media is not going anywhere.

Not to mention, you can't roll an iPad up and stuff it in your pocket or bag. If you drop an iPad on the ground it breaks, whereas if you drop a magazine you pick it up and keep reading. Businesses will not leave iPads lying around on the coffee table to read while you wait for your appointment, and you certainly aren't going to give your iPad to someone else when you're done reading your articles. As good as the iPad display might be, it will not be able to hold a candle to the picture quality and detail you can get in say an issue of National Geographic.

Besides, as electronics carry a heavy environmental cost to manufacture, e-media is not the environmental panacea many think it to be. I daresay that concerted efforts to increase the efficiency and adoption of recycling will ultimately be far more effective environmentally than any e-device in the near future will.

Ruahrc

You hit the nail on the head Additionally, I keep some of my publications for at least several years and a few for a very long time. That would require a tremendous amount amount of storage. I can't see every doctor's office keeping 10 - 20 iPads for patient viewing. If you take into account all businesses who have magazines for their customers to peruse there is not enough bandwidth in the world to accommodate the network that would be required. My wife and I re-cycle everything so there is no environmental impact.

 

[samcraig]

Print isn't going anywhere anytime soon. What people keep forgetting is that their worldview is very geocentric. And the iPad is a LUXURY item. There are still a large amount of households without computers let alone internet.

So unless there's government funding or families are given free internet and an iPad to go with it - the print medium (aside from all the other reasons given in this thread) isn't going anywhere.

 

[sullivot]

Print isn't going anywhere anytime soon. What people keep forgetting is that their worldview is very geocentric. And the iPad is a LUXURY item. There are still a large amount of households without computers let alone internet.

So unless there's government funding or families are given free internet and an iPad to go with it - the print medium (aside from all the other reasons given in this thread) isn't going anywhere.

True to a degree. But I don't expect the publishing business to pander to those who can't afford a computer or internet access. They're in the game of selling advertising to stay afloat....so demographics are important. Who wants to advertise to someone who needs to get free iPads & free internet anyway. That's not really their target market. Which is why many specialty magazines, with affluent readership, are more likely to go all digital. Mass market mags, or those with less affluent readership, are more likely to maintain a print presence. But just as every magazine has a website, in 10 years, probably all magazines will have a digital edition.

Just as interesting as seeing how magazines fare switching to all digital, will be seeing how new startup magazines fare in digital only format. I think magazines with shrinking readership, or start ups, are salivating over the possibilities of this.

 

[samcraig]

True to a degree. But I don't expect the publishing business to pander to those who can't afford a computer or internet access. They're in the game of selling advertising to stay afloat....so demographics are important. Who wants to advertise to someone who needs to get free iPads & free internet anyway. That's not really their target market. Which is why many specialty magazines, with affluent readership, are more likely to go all digital. Mass market mags, or those with less affluent readership, are more likely to maintain a print presence. But just as every magazine has a website, in 10 years, probably all magazines will have a digital edition.

Just as interesting as seeing how magazines fare switching to all digital, will be seeing how new startup magazines fare in digital only format. I think magazines with shrinking readership, or start ups, are salivating over the possibilities of this.

Pander? That's a bit elitist, no?

The reality is - newspapers, in general, do not make money on print editions. Advertising, like you said - pays for that. But, and I speak from experience having been in the publishing industry for over a decade - without print editions, which aren't heavily "monitored" - readership #'s falter. In other words - Newspapers and magazines (but mostly Newspaper) benefit from having thousands of hard copies floating around because they are able to report their readerships as x. And x includes a formula to take into consideration that more than one person reads that same newspaper.

Internet stats are still not foolproof and lord knows numbers can be embellished as well. But the auditing process is a lot "looser" for physical print editions. Always has been.

I do agree that high end magazines will likely go digital as it offers their customer an enhanced experience with their publication. And with a niche market/less readership than mainstream pubs, they would benefit the most.

BTW - those that argue that epubs are more "green" need to consider all the servers, etc that contribute to the carbon footprint required for electronic formats. I'm not saying it's equal - but it's not necc "green" when all is said and done

 

[Michael CM1]

I really expected them to have an iBook sort of app for magazines though. Was surprised to see that it seems newspapers and magazines will simply have their own apps.

Perhaps someone will make apps for smaller publishers to use and the bigger publishers can make an app to allow you to subscribe to multi magazines they publish.

I think expanding the bookstore concept, though to magazines, would have been worthwhile for Apple to do.

I work for a smaller newspaper, so that would be awesome. We can barely afford the Web site, much less everything else that makes good journalism costly. If I could discover something like this, we could possibly get RAISES again. We have so many people in our area and so few online readers. We get a few iPhone and Android hits, but it's nothing compared to desktops. I'm assuming it's mostly people who work 9 to 5 because of the spikes at about 8 in the morning.

I'm convinced our future online will be either through Web sites or through collaborative software. We've become so accustomed to reading everything for free, and I don't think making people pay for ANY viewing on a site will make sense unless you're like the Wall Street Journal.

Basically, I imagine some app like iNews that would kind work like how Google, Yahoo and others gather headlines from other sites. You download iNews and pick subscription levels. You can read one or two stories for free on any site, but after that you have to pay. For complete access to a large paper, maybe $15. Then you go down from there. We could start bringing in a few dollars here and there, and as the less-techy older people are replaced by people who were born texting, the revenue should go up.

Magazines can be very similar. I was very impressed with the video availability in iBook and in the NY Times app. I just hope the other tablets will learn from Apple and adopt similar policies.

 

[ugp]

When I can roll up an iPad and dispatch a bug on the wall . . . then I might consider magazines obsolete.

Hahaha... You could use it to kill a bug on the wall... But I don't think you would want to.

 

[Tom Creo]

Is there any info on what e-magazines and newspapers are gonna be available on the iPad?

 

[Chaos123x]

Someone should ask Steve Harriss if the new EGM will support the iPad.

 

[samcraig]

Originally Posted by MTI
When I can roll up an iPad and dispatch a bug on the wall . . . then I might consider magazines obsolete.

Maybe there's an app for that? A high frequency bug repeller?