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September 7th, 2011 by Wadds

The iPad press office: 10 apps and cloud based services

Speed’s John Brown looks into the future of the press office

In 1993 I worked in the Press Office for the British Touring cars. The press team used to travel to circuits with suitcases of kit so that we could write and distribute content for each race. Grid starts and results were printed, faxed or emailed to journalists, always assuming that we could find a spare phone line to hook up a 9.6kps modem.

Now you’d just take an iPad and hook-up to the local wi-fi. In fact we’ve created an iPad press office for people traveling to events such as IBC this weekend. These are iPads loaded with media and PR apps and links. Here are our ten must have iPad applications or cloud services for the iPad press office.

1. Blogs – use your favourite blogging platform to upload and share content from your event. We typically use Posterous or Tumblr for short lived campaigns and WordPress for social media press rooms, but it varies from client-to-client.

2. iPhoto – discovering dongles that enable digital cameras to be hooked up to an iPad has dramatically increased my personal usage of the iPad. You can download photos or video into iPhoto and select and share your best content. Its great for editing down a stack of photos.

3. Google documents – there’s no longer any need to carry paper copies of documents. Load them up to a cloud based service (Google documents is free) and share them with your team. You can review and edit them on the move.

4. Dropbox – Google documents is a good way of sharing documents. But if you’re looking for more there’s Dropbox a cloud based way of syncing any type of content between difference devices. Up to 2GB of storage is free.

5. Twitter – increasingly the preferred means of communication with journalists. Your favourite Twitter interface is almost certainly available as app. Preload searches for monitoring and lists so that you can segment the audience at an event.

6. Google Alerts – like Twitter search Google Alerts is a tool that has radically changed monitoring. Set up Google Alert and use the iPad email service to provide a first line of reporting on the web.

7. Flickr – when it comes to photo sharing, captioning and tagging, Flickr is the grandfather. There are apps of varying quality for directly uploading images to the network but we’d recommend Flickr.

8. Media – almost all forms of the media are available via the web. Use apps or your browser for online content, Internet Radio Box for radio and TVCatchup or apps such as BBC iPlayer for television monitoring.

9. Travel – live flight, train, traffic and tube timetables are available via the app store, so there is no excuse for ever being late, and if you need a cab in London you can book via the Addison Lee apps.

10. Google Maps – if you’re visiting a new location Google Maps is an excellent way of finding your way around. Preload locations by creating user defined maps.

What PR and media apps or cloud based services would your recommend?

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February 10th, 2011 by Wadds

BBC iPad app visually stunning; but not available offline

The BBC iPad app is stunning. The navigation is slick, the video is beautiful and the audio is perfect. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a content rich app.

But why can’t you download content for offline viewing as you can with a laptop. Instead you need to be connected to 3G or wi-fi to watch video streams. I’m gutted.

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November 30th, 2010 by Wadds

iPad ‘newspapers’ aren’t propping up print, but they’re helping

iPad versions of print newspapers may not make up for the shortfall in revenues for the decline in print but they are certainly showing encouraging signs of generating a valuable source of income for publishers.

There are two distinct approaches: the first repurposes web content for the iPad and is continually updated throughout the day; and the second is a bespoke iPad version of the newspaper that is published once a day.

The Financial Times app is almost certainly the best example of the former approach. It has reportedly generated more than £1million in revenue and 400,000 subscribers have signed up for the app which shares content with the paper and the web site.

The Telegraph is an example of the latter approach. It is delivered to iTunes for download in a daily edition at 5am each morning. It’s currently free in a deal sponsored by Audi but a paid-for version is expected any day.

iPad ‘newspapers’ are proving successful because they allow publisher to maintain the production values of the traditional product at the same time as creating an immersive environment in contrast to the web where you’re only ever a click away from someone else’s content.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Brit that invented the web, recently criticised Apple for making iTunes a closed market. It’s a return to walled-garden created by ISPs in the 1990s, he said.

But for newspaper publishers in the UK the iPad is proving to be a way of innovating and generating much needed revenues.

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June 2nd, 2010 by Wadds

iPad media update: more apps, PaidContent analyses take-up and a call for comment from Communicate Magazine

In my search for media apps for the iPad yesterday I completely missed the FT’s new app­. A search for Financial Times (rather than FT) in the Apps Store will find it for you (or click on the link). It’s free until July. Thanks to everyone who pointed this out.

Michael Cooper recommends Guardian Eyewitness, Reuters and Wired. I’ll check these out in the coming days. And for RSS readers he says “Newsrack looks to be a worthy RSS feed reader but I’m holding out for Reeder which should appear soon.”

Peter Houston who writes an excellent blog called Flipping Pages about the future of digital magazines says that “the NPR app is excellent, a wonderful mix of magazine, radio and video in a quirky three-tier layout.”

Robert Andrews writing in Paid Content has analysed the economic implications for newspaper publishers of early take-up of media apps and content on the iPad.

Finally Communicate Magazine is looking for early feedback from communication professionals on potential uses of the iPad in corporate communication and reputation management. Check out its two-minute survey.

June 1st, 2010 by Wadds

iPad media disappoints (for now)

At the FT Media Conference in March mainstream media publishers lined up to described how they were scrambling to get their apps onto the iPad.

Yet with a few notable exceptions to the shift from print to iPad is disappointing. The Guardian and The Financial Times have repurposed their existing iPhone apps. At double magnification they pixelate but if you’ve already bought the app you won’t need to shell out again.

Pulse is good. It’s based on the Newser like-grid but with full articles rather than summaries. It aggregates and serves up stories in a visually appealing format. Tap a story that interest you and you’re taken to the full text

I’m also a fan of Instapaper. It allows you to save web pages from a browser for syncing and viewing later offline. I already use the web version but I can see it being a productivity boom on the iPad.

Existing web properties work well on the iPad. The Safari browser is fast and touch driven navigation is incredibly natural.

Video also works well providing of course that you don’t need Flash. ITV Player won’t work but BBC iPlayer is fantastic. And the Sky Mobile TV app is good.

The iPhone audio apps that I have come to love, such as RadioBox and Spotify, work well on the iPad. But again that’s no surprise; they’re the same app repurposed for the iPad.

I’ve looked hard for books that make good use of the iPad without success. If you’ve any recommendations I love to hear from you. Likewise if you’ve discovered any interesting approaches to new media on the iPad please let me know.

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May 24th, 2010 by Wadds

Will the iPad kill print? Will it hell

Steve Jobs while presenting the iPad in San Fr...
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.

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May 24th, 2010 by Wadds

Apple beats Nintendo at its own game with the iPad

Rearview
Image via Wikipedia

Mark Pinsent has started contributing to Wired’s Geek Dad column. In a post last week he describes his children’s love of the Apple iPad and the iPhone.

“My kids, and the kids of anyone else I know who owns one, absolutely love the iPhone. Not only for the games and apps, but also just to hold and use. The bright and attractive touchscreen interface seems entirely intuitive to a child and so, in creating a “bigger iPhone”, has Apple not designed the perfect computing device for children?”

There is no doubt that the iPad is a gorgeous device that is entirely natural to use and doesn’t require you to adapt your behaviour. It’s no surprise then that children love it.

But it crosses generations. Try it out with your parents; older people love-it as well.

Apple has beaten Nintendo at its own game by designing a computing-device that appeals across the generations. We’ve been talking about pervasive computing for 10, maybe 20 years.

Could it finally have arrived?

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April 6th, 2010 by Wadds

iPad is a great business for Apple – but it won’t save print

The iPad could prove to be a smart way for Apple to grab part of the publishing market as a content aggregator. But it won’t save print media by providing a new audience as Apple fanatics are predicting. In fact it could hasten its decline.

At best it’s another chapter in the unfolding story of the fragmentation of media. Publishers must make their content available on yet another platform and be prepared for Apple to act as gatekeeper.

If the iPad is successful the only winner will be Apple. Remember iTunes?

Alan Patrick blogged about this yesterday in the iPad will save print media and other modern myths.  If you’re interested in the future of media businesses his slideshare and commentary on Where is the Money in Media is required reading.

Snap by Sharynmorrow on Flickr with thanks.

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