Why everybody needs to calm down

Yes, I am excited to see what the iPad will bring in terms of new ideas surrounding interactivity, storytelling and location-based media.

That’s because I’m a consumer. From a publishing perspective, however, here are five reasons why it’s best not to get too carried away by the pre-release hype.

1. Pre-rendered is not publication

First there was the internet browser, then WAP, then smartphones, now tablet computers and the iPad. It’s fair to say that the publishing industry has never had so many platforms to adapt to. However, another consumer-facing industry has faced even more platform changes and new interaction tools over the past two decades or so: that of videogames, from which I’m borrowing the word “pre-rendered”.

The term “pre-rendered footage” refers to the visuals most companies use in trailers for forthcoming games – it means that the footage isn’t actually taken from the game itself. Instead, it’s an animation created on a top-end PC to build up the hype around what the game might be like. What they’re showing you may not even be possible on the console’s hardware.

Which is what we’re seeing with all these fancy iPad magazine videos. This one, for instance, includes videochat, while the iPad doesn’t even have a camera. I’m all in favor of big thinking and big dreaming – just be aware that we may see very little of this expansive interactive magazine reality in the first 18 months of development. It may not be possible, and it almost certainly won’t be affordable.

Anything gorgeous that does emerge will most likely be eyewateringly expensive to produce, at least for the next couple of years. We might get a few sponsored gimmicks, but don’t expect our entire iPad magazine future to look like Viv‘s prototype.

2. The revenue model is not proven

I’ve been doing some consulting recently for three different clients who wanted to create iPad apps. Two of them have never had their own publications before.

Why their sudden interest? Because the feeling is that the iPad is the place to be, and that there’s gold in them thar hills. There certainly is, for those select people who can code Objective C at least, which is the language that iPad apps are written in. Beyond that… well, it feels like we’ve been here before. Welcome to 1998, the year we were told that every company needed to have its own website in order to make money, and it would take an expensive agency and an overpriced coder to do it for you.

There are crucial differences between then and now, it’s true: iTunes has seemingly cracked the micropayments issue, and advertisers are no longer so digital shy.

However, the iPhone app marketplace shows that making money is far from certain, even for big names. GQ sold 12,000 copies of its January iPhone app – respectable in context, but I’ll wager that the income doesn’t nearly cover half the money they paid for the prototype.

Monthly magazines face another problem: that of limited shelf life. If you’re selling a regular app, game, or even an iBook or an iTunes album, you will hope to recoup your money over a period of several months or longer. But who’ll pay for last month’s Wired, or January’s Cosmo? All of which suggests that regular publications will have two choices: make specific themed apps designed to have longer shelf lives (as Rodale did on the iPhone, apparently successfully) or opt for template-based solutions that aren’t nearly as glamorous and individually tailored to each feature as most of the pre-rendered videos suggest.

And by the way, if you’re looking to make a fast buck, I promise you that creating a new magazine, even on the iPad, is not the answer. Costs for editorial are entirely upfront and some are fixed, even without printing costs; returns are highly uncertain even in times of prosperity, and if you’re not passionate about what you want to say, readers will smell it from a mile away.

3. Nobody knows the answers to the following questions:

4. Everything else on the iPad is your competitor

One of the principle reasons that magazine sales have dropped over the past decade is because they are now competing with newer forms of technology for our attention. Where once only a book or a magazine would occupy a plane ride, now many people pass the time with laptops, videos on iPods and games consoles, not to mention the inflight entertainment. On the train, more people today listen to iPods and check emails than read publications. It’s not that magazines have no future, merely that they will never be as popular as they once were, because there are more choices available to us, all the time.

The iPad is a microcosm of this, and one that we already suffer from with our computers. The question publishers have to answer is this: Why will people pay to read your magazine app when they also have the option, with no effort at all, to be on the internet, watching movies, reading books, checking email on the very same device?

5. Your advertisers may also be your competitors

Until the internet age, companies advertised in newspapers and magazines because it was the only way, beyond billboards and direct marketing, to talk to their customers. Also, people engage on a deeper level with something that they have chosen, rather than with ads that invade their space uninvited.

However, on the internet, and now through iTunes as well, companies can talk directly to their consumers, and create their own experiences, be they editorial or otherwise, without the interference of editorial independence or ads for competing brands. The Art Of The Trench isn’t just a natty website – it’s also where Burberry’s advertising dollars went, and fashion magazines felt the pinch. Others will follow.

iPad magazines may soon find that the ads they carry will be in the form of links to other applications, this time created by brands – all of which compete with the magazine itself for the iPad user’s time.

Conclusion

I’ve very much enjoyed consulting on a few products that I hope will actually appear on the iPad, and am very happy to speak to more companies about helping them achieve something remarkable on the platform. It’s an exciting space with a lot of possibilities, and despite my skeptical tone above, I do firmly believe that certain content for particular audiences will flourish on the device. Please, ignore me, prove me wrong and create something wonderful.

However, if you’re a publisher considering an iPad edition, I do believe that you should think carefully why and how you will enter the iPad platform, and whether what you want to achieve is even manageable on the device right now. So far, I’ve seen far too many Underpants Gnomes business plans*. Just remember: an iPad overspend could critically damage what might otherwise be a moderately successful print product.

* The underpants gnomes business plan:

1. Build iPad app.
2.??????
3. Profit!