woodwing

Web Fonts May Be the Key for Magazines on the iPad (and all the Rest of the Digital Platforms)

Following Apple's iPad launch, I was struck by the juxtaposition of two observations by the commentators. Firstly, several noted the failure of the Flash component in the demo of the New York Times pages; apparently, like its cousins the iPod Touch and the iPhone, the iPad does not play Flash content. Secondly, as detailed in the extreme by a post at Gawker, there was no glitzy demo of magazine content. read more >>

The San Francisco Bay Area is known worldwide as the epicenter of technological innovation. Now, to the list that runs from electronics to computers, software and biotechnology, one can add a stunning innovation in journalism. read more >>

In a recent New York Times piece looking back after 10 years on fabled launch party for Talk Magazine, David Carr mentions in passing that in those 1999 boom times star magazine writers were being paid $5 per word.* At that rate, one of those stars could toss off a thousand words in the morning and make $5,000 before trotting off to lunch at the Four Seasons. No wonder the top journalists are mourning the passing of an era! read more >>

Recent events have convinced me that:

a) opportunity cost is the largest component of Total Cost of Ownership
b) "vaporware" (= delay in delivery of claimed functionality) is the biggest source of of opportunity cost
c) the opportunity cost can swamp other cost components

The formal definition of opportunity cost  is more than a little opaque, so let's be specfic: In content publshing, the opportunity cost of selecting one vendor is the difference in your economics between what you experience with one vendor and what would have happend with the vendor you didn't select.

Case study:  the effect of delay in delivery

A textbook publisher chooses between an established Solution A and a forthcoming Solution B. After a corporate review, B is selected on the basis of prototypes of forthcoming technology that show special functionality. These prototypes mask the true state of readiness.  Delays follow, and the Solution B rollout comes much later than planned. read more >>

On February 28th, they turned off the lights for good at Denver’s # 2 daily, the Rocky Mountain News. The Seattle Post Intelligencer may not make it through March. The San Francisco Chronicle is “on the bubble”.

Does this mean the end of newspapers in the USA, or, as some would have us believe, the end of news?

Well, I think it is just a bit more complex. Let’s start with newspapers. The New York Times is not going away, nor is the Wall St. Journal, and probably not the Washington Post. But I would not be surprised to see almost all of the next tier of urban metros succumb in the next 24 to 48 months. read more >>