Are
Publishers Embracing The Post-iPad Age?
by Gavin O'Malley,
Are consumers
actually engaging more with content on devices like smartphones and tablets?
Publishers in attendance for OMMA Publish on Wednesday wanted to know.
Heck yeah, said
Cameron Clayton, VP of mobile for The Weather Channel. "The iPhone changed
everything from an engagement point of view." To date, The Weather Channel
has recorded 10 million downloads, and now sees 5 million uniques a month.
"The ad story
is huge; the paid version is huge," said Clayton. The iPad experience is
different, he said. "It's about weekends," when the publisher witnesses
a 300-to-400% spike versus the weekdays.
Rick Levine, VP of
editorial operations at Conde Nast, said GQ readers are spending nearly
the same amount of time with iPhone apps -- 65-70 minutes a month -- that they
do with the magazine -- 80 minutes a month. By contrast, readers spend less
than 10 minutes a month browsing GQ.com, said Levine. "We think that
there's a tremendous appeal to getting a magazine digitally."
Of particular
note, Jeff Litvack, GM of global product development at The Associated Press,
said he's not seeing the same level of engagement on Android devices as he is
on Apple devices. He wasn't sure exactly why, but he suggested it could have
something to do with the "experience."
What's the real
value of a publisher's iPad investment? Beyond usership numbers -- which are
still quite modest -- the branding possibilities "can't really be
overstated," Sarah Rotman Epps, a consumer product strategy analyst at
Forrester Research, said Wednesday. "Numbers tell part of the story, but
not the whole thing." Also of note, she said, is the fact that the revenue
per impression that publishers can charge on something like an iPad is very
attractive.
More broadly, the
future for publishers is "app-centric and multiplatform," said
Rotman. "Even browsers are starting to feature apps." Why? Apps allow
publishers to deliver this curated experience to users -- some that they can
charge a premium for.
Users increasingly
want go "go deeper" with apps, Rotman added. Browsers will play a
role, but it will be "different."
More than Facebook
integration or app development, however, publishers should be thinking of new
and creative ways to differentiate themselves.
"What we're
not hearing a lot is how publishers differentiate themselves," Josh
Jacobs, SVP of Brand Advertising Products and Global Marketing at Glam Media,
said Wednesday.
Added Mike Tatum,
a partner at digital media company Whiskey Media: "The normalization is
killing our industry."
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