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Print Publishers to the Bank of next generation Web applications to success in mobile devices
Newspapers, magazines and book publishers around the world have been actively addressing the readers change to digital platforms, especially mobile devices, but have been dealing with key issues in the creation of sustainable income and all forms of content delivery. What is the most effective approach to reach the public than through mobile devices? How can publishers best monetize the content delivered via mobile devices?
Why publishers print media to adopt mobile
Print publishers are now losing audience, particularly younger to mobile devices every day. Research across 15 European countries shows that 43% of 16-24 years of age and one quarter of 25-34 year olds are driving an increase in the consumption of mobile internet. These users reported spending on average 6.3 hours a week with mobile Internet activities such as email, search, social networks, compared with only 4.6 hours spent reading newspapers and 3.9 hours reading magazines. What is particularly worrying for print publishers is that the use of print is likely to continue declining.
We believe that a key resource of mobile devices in addition to its portability, is the multi-functionality and connectivity widespread. For consumers of content, this means that you can read, see and buy all types of content in one place and at any anywhere, anytime. This is something that traditional paper editions have been unable to offer.
What are publishers doing print to adapt to the mobile media
The most common answer print publishers to date is to provide an application phone optimized for the most popular smartphone devices and Tablet PC. Most of this activity is carried out on the iPhone and the IPAD, thanks to Apple explosives market success.
At the forefront of this development is the New York Times, have even created a "Reader Applications" business segment and launched a "mobile-friendly content interface called Skimmer times.
Meanwhile, all the great books and magazines are fully embrace the platform lift e-reader Amazon Kindle e IPAD Apple iBooks store. A good example is the edition of Time Inc. tablet concept of Sports Illustrated.
What results mean the natives off the Web application to study involves printing publishers
The findings have important implications as the most common method used today is to launch native applications platform-specific. However, this is only possible for editors large print and usually too expensive for smaller companies that also want to reach the maximum number of audiences on mobile devices.
While an iPhone or IPAD application provides access to 86 million users of Apple, you need to take into account the hundreds of millions of Android, Symbian or Windows phone users restraint devices companies like Samsung, HTC, Blackberry and Nokia. This problem becomes more relevant outside the U.S. market in places like Europe and Asia.
Each new platform that can increase the budget adopted mobile development in the region of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, including costs coding, production, quality control, maintenance and joint marketing.
For smaller, independent newspaper journal editors, this is simply out of the question given the lack of immediate financial benefits. As a result, you can only point to a popular platform or device.
Web applications are therefore the best solution
In many ways, yes.
Our study, based on A survey of 87 publishers of mobile applications in over 20 service sectors, has confirmed that a web application in general, will save costs in the development and maintenance; weeks is usually faster to implement and allows you to serve audiences across multiple devices with relatively little customization.
In fact, a major news agency recently told us that they have had to update its iPhone application three times during the past year, while version web is much more stable and easier to update regularly.
One of the traditional problems of web applications was in the user experience in namely the lack of rich native phone features such as GPS, motion detection and camera functions.
However, ongoing development HTML5, CSS3 style sheets and the release of the API browser with access to the functions of the device referred to shortly close the gap for most categories of applications mobile.
In addition, our study shows that web applications and seem to generate increased visitor loyalty, where 33% of the editors application steady growth in web use after the first time, compared to only 23% of publishers native application. This is particularly important for business subscription-based, such as print publishers.
A counter-argument is native application that stores offer a better way to monetize mobile content. What is your opinion
Not necessarily. I would not say that.
Shops native application, Apple and Nokia (Ovi), for example, have done a great job in marketing, the value of mobile applications and offer an integrated billing capabilities. So this creates a superior user experience, where consumers can navigate applications and content in a store front and do not need a credit card holder data by each individual purchase.
With that said, the application stores generally operate in a controlled environment and quality assurance and strict regulations revenue sharing imposed on publishers. While a print publisher can set their own prices and in some cases offer subscriptions pursuant to the readers, will always be under control "of the store-owner to approve its content and application functionality. Not to mention the need to pay 30% of revenues to the shop-owner.
This is a fundamental issue for the business model for publishers, since they have always enjoyed the ability to know exactly who and where their consumers and be able cross-sell products to them. With the release of IPAD Apple is also trying to control the ads carefully integrated into the iPhone and applications of IPAD, could be another growing concern for especially newspapers and magazine publishers, given the importance of advertising revenue.
Do consumers would be willing to pay for news and magazine content? So far the experience of desktop publishing has been very encouraging.
Them are already paying for the content and the key is the value and quality.
For example, GQ magazine costs $ 2.99 per track users through your application For iPhone, while the times financial accounts paid directly to the content delivered over the iPhone application freely downloaded. Unlike the versions desktops, smartphones and tablet offers a very different and more "focused" experience of reading – like reading a document traditional or magazine. As such content "feel" real value again.
We also believe that publishers can charge users directly independent of the App Store, from editors of newspapers and magazines often have a customer relationship in place through their print versions.
The subscription model offers means that the consumer has to register once payment details, unlike pay-per-download applications like games. For existing subscribers, mobile presents an additional point of sale customer retention.
What is the future business model of print media
Many companies are experimenting with different prices and offer models in these times, it remains to be seen how things work ultimately will evolve. However, one could take some tips from the music industry, which is also experiencing a change paradigm in terms of sales and distribution.
A good example is Spotify, which offers a free service to listen to songs online supported by advertising, but users the cost of a paid version that offers the use of online mobile and a variety of complementary roles.
An interesting fact is Near Number Media, a consortium founded by four major publishers of Time magazine, Condé Nast, Meredith, News Corporation and Hearst. He is currently working to build a publishing platform based on standard web magazine editors around the world to reach their audiences through mobile devices. This could change the rules of game applications for print, so to speak.
About the Author
Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) is a strategic market intelligence and advisory group. GIA was formed in 1995 when a team of market intelligence specialists, management consultants, industry analysts and technology experts came together to build a powerful suite of customized solutions ranging from outsourced market monitoring services and software, to strategic analysis and advisory.
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Faraz Syed, CEO of DeviceAnywhere talks with Lee Williams of Symbian at Mobile World Congress 2010