Despite all the newspapers going bankrupt and blogs talking about the death of newspapers, it’s about time (no pun intended) someone from the industry finally embraced the new medium (namely, technology) better.
TechCrunch posted a bit of coverage of Time, Inc.’s digital version designed for tablet computers. I don’t know which one works better with the other. I really think if Apple throws their tablet into the fray, they’ll really kick that segment into gear. Right now, it seems tablet computers are purview of niche/specialized markets that need or work better with tablets. I’ve wanted to get a tablet for some time but the limited coverage and selection combined with high prices compared to comparable laptops just didn’t make sense. Plus, the convertables always seem like they’re one snatch away from splitting in two.
But, if Apple makes it cool to carry a tablet, especially for the college generation, applications that take advantage of the format can find themselves riding that wave of growth. For the newspaper/magazine industry that is slowly but surely being forced to decide whether cutting down more trees is worthwhile in a world where bits and bytes make printing costs next to zero, it could be the technological “innovation” that saves them.
The trick here is the business model. The TC article mentions an app-store-like model (you buy the app and get access to the content). Meh. Honestly, if you were publishing a commemorative one-time digital magazine, you’re good to go. But, this is updated content. You need a subscription model but you need to find the right price point and a good way to tease people into that subscription model. Tiered models that allow access to limited amounts of articles and news? I mean, we’re used to magazine subscriptions but you’re also competing against free sources for news and information out there.
It really comes down to providing compelling content that people can’t find anywhere but really want to get to. Maybe you just offer two ways of getting to the articles? The traditional model offers a monthly subscription rate of $5-10/mo for unlimited access to articles and content. Content older than say six months gets archived and requires a small fee to get access to (or offer a premium sub that gives unrestricted access to your archives).
The other model dishes out articles or sections of magazines for one-time fees. Fees can (and should) be small ($0.50-1.00). Make the site members only unless you want to (and feel you can get) offer advertising to cover that. Just don’t for the love of God assume you can give away X amount of news for free then require a fee after they exceed that. In other words, don’t give away the farm and expect people to pay for the left overs.
My main concern for Time and other news/magazine companies is that they’re too stuck in the 20th century to figure out how to deal with 21st century norms. Like the 18th century vampire hoping to modernize himself, they might latch on to a newer Web 2.0 company but that could just leave an empty husk rather than Vampire 2.0.
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