Bright future for the brave

2010 was the year that we will remember as the Tablet year, particularly when The iPad was introduced and some alternatives followed. In 2011 publishers are shifting their focus from being bewildered by great technology and design to how to make paid content work.

The Daily, an app worth a review

Media historians will probably make a big deal out of 2 February 2011, the day the first newspaper created exclusively for the iPad appeared. In this article, renowned media designer Mario Garcia gives his analysis of this unique project.

Mobile tools all belong to the same family: the choice of Le Parisien

The daily newspaper Le Parisien (Amaury group) covers Paris as well as the most densely populated region in France. For three years, the newspaper has been expanding its business on all the mobile platforms that have come on to the market, including tablets. For Didier Cros, Deputy Director New Media with responsibility for technical matters, the challenge is to explore this new world while keeping expenditure at a reasonable level.

The wild west of trying things

A year ago, when Apple introduced the iPad, Steve Jobs opened an entirely new perspective for the future of publishing. But this gift, so to speak, came with his rules, which put a firm damper on the industry’s ambitions. In this new cat-and-mouse game with the giant Cupertino Corporation, what is at stake is the ownership, or more accurately the co-ownership, of end customers. In this interview, WAN-IFRA’s specialist on everything digital, Stig Nordqvist, assesses the current situation.

The digital kiosk perspective: time to adapt our strategy

NewspaperDirect continues to reinvent its concept for distributing the digital versions of daily newspapers and magazines. After conquering PCs, then the e-readers of Amazon, Sony or Barnes & Noble, as well as the smartphone, the company is seizing the opportunity offered by tablets. And it has no intention of submitting to the rules of any one manufacturer.

Hastening cautiously into an unknown world

“Prototype and iterate,” that’s the advice Apple gives to developers of apps for the iPad. Although it is not necessary to throw all their resources at once into the tablet world, doing nothing is clearly not an option for publishers. In this learning phase, those who will succeed will be the ones who make an effort to develop practical products and discover how to attract their customers.

Overview of the publishing solutions

German publishers testing the waters

Here we take a closer look at two German titles that are testing the waters of premium tablet content services with completely new products: First, the Frankfurter Rundschau, which has already got its “feet wet” by being one of the first German daily newspapers to create a dedicated native application in September of 2010 and has therefore gained significant experience. At the other end of the spectrum, we examine the Rheinische Post in Düsseldorf with its RP Plus iPad app for Sunday readers, which was launched in late January and will go paid-for in late April.