- Image via Wikipedia
I returned to the NEC, Birmingham today to participate in PIRA’s Great Print Debates for a session that pitched the iPad against print.
The iPad will no more spell the end of print than any previous generation of technology. Radios, TVs, PCs, CD-ROMs and the internet were all at one time set to hasten the demise of print.
The iPad is simply another device in the ongoing narrative of an industry reeling from the shift towards advertising online, the internet as a low cost real time distribution platform, and competition for consumer attention from screen based media.
Frank Romano, Professor Emeritus, Rochester Institute of Technology, did an excellent job as chair in navigating the issues facing the print industry. He divided the market up into three segments for ease of the discussion. Here’s a summary of the debate.
- Newspapers – the game was up long before Apple dreamt up the iPad. Newspapers have never recovered from the loss of classified advertising to online and the availability of free news content. Publishers are valiantly trying to build alternative funding models ranging from micro payments to clubs and from firewalls to traffic-baiting content supported by ads.
- Books – the market splits clearly into fiction and non-fiction. Consumers are unlikely to give-up the convenience or familiarity of paperbacks or the kudos of a recently published hardback any time soon. Electronic books are likely to become a convenience item for travellers but are unlikely to make a significant impact on print sales. Non-fiction books are likely to move online in time as a digital format provides a means to promote richer content, revisions and updates, and is a means to create a community.
- Magazines – There’s strong evidence to support the view that the future of business-to-business magazines lies in a digital model as display advertising continues to decline and content moves to the web. But the story for consumer titles is very different with several standout successes. Magazines are artefacts typically focused around a rich content proposition or strong niche. As long as publishers can create compelling content and the cost of publication and distribution makes it viable the consumer magazine industry will continue.
You can follow the conversation after the debate on the IPEX forum on LinkedIn.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=cf083fae-8045-4169-8945-b369ed164391)
Will the iPad kill print? Will it hell http://goo.gl/fb/yVBbx (@wadds) #media #ipad #print #publishing
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Will the iPad kill print? Will it hell http://goo.gl/fb/yVBbx (@wadds) #media #ipad #print #publishing (via @speedcomms)
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
[My blog] Will the iPad kill print? Will it hell http://bit.ly/9EsKNP – Summary of #IPEX debate today
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Will the iPad kill print? Will it hell: http://bit.ly/9O3Roq by @wadds
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
@Whatleydude My blog post precisely – Will the iPad kill print? Will it hell: http://bit.ly/9O3Roq
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
[...] the person behind the till forgetting their glasses that day. As Steve puts it quite rightly in his blog post: The iPad is simply another device in the ongoing narrative of an industry reeling from the shift [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stephen Waddington, Stephen Waddington, James Tenniswood, Philip Sheldrake, Jay O'Connor and others. Jay O'Connor said: RT @wadds: [My blog] Will the iPad kill print? Will it hell http://bit.ly/9EsKNP – Summary of #IPEX debate today [...]
Yep, and that’s not even taking the price barrier of the iPad into consideration. It’s not cheap. You think the average Sun reader wants to pile hundreds into purchasing one when they can pick up a paper for 36p? (or however much it is now…). No chance.
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
been using one of our studio ipads for over a month now, i can’t figure out what it does other than add more weight to my bag, thoroughly disappointed to be honest.
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
nice metaphor
though it’s a little misleading (dodgy stats) and clearly lobbying for the print industry.
as you rightly say there is no book/magazine/iPhone/whatever else killer
there’s room for all good things.
rubbish things die they don’t get killed
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
Lest people forget, take a look around your library next time you visit, that is if you can find a library open at a suitable time of day without one of those, open mon 1-2, wed 3-5, closed fri, sat, sun mon etc etc etc. The requirement for printed material is diminishing with the influence of e-books, magazine applications on-line and on your phone etc. Some industries are blooming while others are flagging or being forgotten in the internet stampede.
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
It’s a clever metaphor to be sure, but it also nicely demonstrates just how misleading metaphors truly are, and, in my humble opinion, are a curse upon modern humanity. Metaphors are useful for learning new ideas and concepts with speed by associated something new with something familiar. But they are often used as substitute for real investigation and true understanding.
The article you quote states that the Internet grabs you and that magazines are immersive, they offer no explanation as to why or how, they just put it out there, because it sounds nice and poetic and because it supports their personal world view perhaps? They are right, but they don’t explain why and hence have no clue about how their empire will fall.
I’ve worked in print my entire life. I own a print company. I live and breath the stuff. I’ve witnessed firsthand how technology impacts print. The impact of the Internet has largely been offset by print technologies that have allowed for growth in the print industry by increasing the speed of production whilst reducing the costs involved.
But now digital technologies — and yes I’m talking about the iPad and it’s offspring and foreign cousins —are outpacing print technologies at such a pace that it will, without any doubt whatsoever, start to have an impact on the printing industry as a whole.
Print is nothing more (or less) than a content delivery technology. It’s been mankind’s greatest content delivery technology for hundreds of years, but it’s about to be surpassed.
The magazine industry — in western society — will be in tatters by 2018. I’m not gloating over this, I love print and I *adore* magazines, but there is little point in deluding myself.
There are very good reasons why the Internet hasn’t killed print. The Web/Computer combo that has been the home of the Internet until now is a poor substitute for the glory of high quality print.
The iPad is different, the iPad is the first real contender for the crown.
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
There is another major problem with the notion that iPads might replace magazines – payment mechanisms.
Most magazines are not bought on subscription, but as one-offs. Outside the US and Japan, this is also true for mobile services: most people pay-as-you-go.
What is the model for non-subscription magazines bought on electronic devices? Some sort of third-party billing system like iTunes? Not for everyone, especially those without credit cards. Charged to a mobile prepay account? Possibly, but bear in mind the average balance is usually around $5-8, and most users will not want to wipe it out to purchase a magazine.
One option might be retail or coin-operated kiosks, with instant transfer / download to your personal device. But that needs an entirely new retail infrastructure.
Then add in problems about roaming (do you pay 10x extra to buy a magazine while in a foreign airport?) as well as practical niggles like sunlight, inability to read during a flight’s power-off periods, backup, churn etc. Will we need a law insisting on “content portabilty” when you switch network or device?
Overall, the iPad (and likely clones) is a glamorous niche. But I cannot see it being that important in the long term.
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
iPad won’t kill magazines. Magazines are committing suicide. Every magazine is just page after page of adverts. Seriously, I picked up a fashion magazine (which someone had paid a fiver for) and waded through a dozen pages of adverts before I came to the first article. That article may as well have been an advert – it was just promoting some bit of tat.
If you like looking at glossy pictures trying to sell you something in a content free environment – you’ll probably “get” the iPad. For the rest of us, it’s just a laptop with a slightly worse form factor for lying on the couch.
Why worse? You have to hold it. My laptop screen is perpendicular to its base and stands by itself. The only thing the iPad has going for it is a big screen.
For books, I’ve moved to eInk. Smaller than a paperback, lighter and I can carry my entire library with me. Black and white has done ok for books for the last few centuries, I see no reason for that to change.
I’m obviously a very grumpy old fogey…
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
Magazines do not equal the whole of print. Newspapers are clearly struggling because of the net. Glossy magazines aren’t (AFAIK). They’re two different things and two different arguments.
The extract is a nice piece of copywriting but it doesn’t prove anything. CDs killed vinyl as a mass-market medium. Downloads are doing the same to CDs. New technologies DO often spell the end of old technologies.
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
Great article James but not sure I agree with you, for three reasons:
Firstly, the immediate involvement and interaction that publishing on the iPad allows. Had you written this in a magazine I almost certainly wouldn’t have responded.
Secondly, the opportunity digital publishing allows for magazines to be living and morphing entities rather static and rigid once a month publications.
And thirdly, and most importantly, the economic and environmental argument. On a long term basis it makes no sense for forests to be felled, huge printing presses to be grinding away, and juggernauts to be thundering up and down motorways, when instead the publisher presses the ’send’ button.
Would I prefer to have my magazine in paper format, absolutely; but I don’t think I will have the choice. Magazines will be washed up on the shore by the tide of progress.
Technology doesn’t necessarily make things better but when it makes things faster and cheaper, it generally wins.
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
Computers have always sold themselves as making our lives easier. Yea, tell my back when I am lugging my notebook and the cables and supplies I need for it which weigh 3 times as much!
Those who say something is dead have a heavy investment in the thing they are saying is the killer. When I first read this post, it was on my E72, which I turned off and picked up the paper-bound book I was reading. We will always have a mixed-media world.
mp/m
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
Computers have always sold themselves as making our lives easier. Yea, tell my back when I am lugging my notebook and the cables and supplies I need for it which weigh 3 times as much!
Those who say something is dead have a heavy investment in the thing they are saying is the killer. When I first read this post, it was on my E72, which I turned off and picked up the paper-bound book I was reading. We will always have a mixed-media world.
mp/m
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude
Computers have always sold themselves as making our lives easier. Yea, tell my back when I am lugging my notebook and the cables and supplies I need for it which weigh 3 times as much!
Those who say something is dead have a heavy investment in the thing they are saying is the killer. When I first read this post, it was on my E72, which I turned off and picked up the paper-bound book I was reading. We will always have a mixed-media world.
mp/m
This comment was originally posted on whatleydude