Mobile PublishingA tale of (missed) opportunities

Terminology

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

Mobile

Mobile Publishing

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"Jeder Verleger auf der Welt sollte sich einmal am Tag hinsetzen, beten und Steve Jobs dafür danken, dass er mit

diesem Gerät die Verlagsindustrie rettet."Matthias Döpfner, CEO Axel Springer SE, 6th April 2010

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

Let’s save the publishing industry!

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

But with which products?

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

• List-View Smartphone Apps with full-length articles?

• ePaper PDFs?

• eMagazines?

Probably not.

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

How do (most) publishers develop their digital products?

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

For Smartphones: Adapting their website structure and content

For Tablets: Adapting their print magazine structure content (mostly almost 1:1)

How do they distribute their digital products?

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

• Like their print products

• You can mostly only buy the whole package

• No de-bundeling

• Giving away free digital subscriptions to print subscribers - Fear of losing them

How should they (probably) develop their products?

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

• Keeping the very core of their content and expand it

• Produce new content that matches the device (and the use case)

• Make design and development core priorities beside content

• Be bold about selling content in smaller packages

• IVW - As publishers still (have to) rely heavily on advertising revenues

• No Ideas

• Print-minded Executives

• and…

The Problems

…Adobe!

…Adobe?• Adobe DPS was developed due to pressure from

Condé Nast as a Framework for their digital magazines

• Adobe DPS is made to work with other Products like InDesign from Adobe - Which are made to create print magazines!

• Adobe DPS is meanwhile probably the most used tool for digital publishing on tablets

What happens, if too many rely on one solution?

Innovation stops!

• Publishers have to wait for the sprint results of the Adobe App to actually improve their eMags (e.g. iOS7 design)

• More standardization through Adobe allows more quantity…but enables no highlights!

• Developing own publishing engines is out of scope or possibility for most publishers (technical excellence)

So, if Publishers (mostly) fail. Who does it right?

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

Non-Publishers!

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

Like Yahoo!…

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

…or Marco Arment…

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

…or TRVL.

But, publishers seem to learn and adapt slowly

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

• Next Issue Media was a try to offer a magazine flatrate…unfortunately with whole PDF issues

• Future Publishing developed its own publishing framework to become more independent!

• WELT launched WELT Kompakt with dedicated editors and a clear mid-term paid focus

Learnings?

Mobility Talks @XING // Mobile Publishing // Tim Herbig

• Focus on developing great products through design and engineering excellence - It’s comparatively easy to get (good) content

• Don’t rely too much on advertising - It often destroys the experience of your content!

• Rethink what you have for new devices and be even ready to abandon it for something completely new

Thank you!