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iPad media publishers need to rethink their strategies

More opinion pieces based on the reports of declining iPad magazine sales have come to light. One by Mathew Ingram on the GigaOM blog widens the scope to look not just at magazines but at all those who put out content for the iPad.

Ingram quotes a blog post by venture capitalist Fred Wilson, who makes a very quotable point about the strange preoccupation some publishers have with getting their content onto the iPad:

I don’t understand why anyone would ever think that adding a presentation layer on top of web based content would make it something people would want to purchase when they are not willing to purchase the same content directly on the web.

In other words, if people aren’t willing to pay for something on the web, that they can easily quote, relink, and otherwise share with their friends, why would they pay for something even more locked down? (And certainly, why would they pay full cover price for it?)

And many of these apps don’t even try to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities that the iPad offers: they simply lock their web content up and try to charge for it.

On his “Reflections of a Newsosaur” blog, veteran journalist Alan D. Mutter makes much the same points. Discussing the Wired magazine app, to which 61% of those who purchased the most recent issue gave the lowest possible score on the iTunes store’s review chart, he writes:

The app is little more than a digital dupe of the print product, with scant interactivity to leverage the power of this sophisticated digital platform. “That’s not Wired,” said an iTunes customer identified as byron246. “It’s tired.”

And he also points out the magazines tend to be glitch-ridden, too costly, and unsubscribable. “In other words, the hassle factor is too high.”

The iPad and its apps are good for some amazing things—games, social networking, and devouring content in freer form using RSS readers and Flipboard. But publishers have to start trying to work with the iPad and play to its strengths rather than keep trying to fit their square pegs in a distinctly round hole.

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