…for InPublishing. “To App or not to App? That is the Question”. But it’s an ink on dead trees mag so another 4 weeks before it’s published! Will send link to main article once it’s available online.
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My question to panel: “which will win – Apps or mobile browsing?” Answers varied widely.
Nick Gee, Autotrader = m browsing, html 5 will ultimately strip away the advantages of Apps
Patrick Mork, GetJar = Apps, they offer too much richness to go away
Douglas Orr, Scope = Apps depend on handsets, web depends on infrastructure. Handsets will evolve way faster, so Apps will ride that wave. But distinction will get blurred too.
Sven Huberts, Marvellous = Apps are here to stay, but deployment on multiple platforms is expensive, which will be the limiting factor
My personal view is that Douglas is definitely right short-term, but Nick is probably right longer term. Also, the lack of marketing options to promote apps (App Store equivalents to SEO, SEM, affiliates, etc) also limits them.
Vincent Sider, Strategy – BT. I can’t quite believe that Farmville is forecasting $450m revenues from virtual goods for 2010.
Rowan Gormley of Naked Wines – what an inspiration! A fantastic example of using social media to disintermediate a stale industry, to the benefit of consumers, producers, and his own business. Wondering whether the same approach could be applied to book publishing; form a nexus of keen and discerning readers, distribute excerpts from submitted manuscripts, and let them select which to publish, with commitment to buy the entire book when available – once you’ve got critical mass, you can underwrite publication, with a ready-made set of advocates to promote the title virally… hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t be blogging this!
#FODM @gleonhard – new marketing themes:
1. When I’m out and about
2. Within the tribe
3. Strangers and people like me
4. At the right time
5. With complete transparency
6. Under my exclusive control
#FODM, of c150 tech savvy delegates 70% iPhones 30% other smartphones, 1 (confessed to) no smartphone. ie – Apple owns the UK, Google.
This seemingly inocuous question holds the key to the future course of publishing. And I’m really not sure which way the fight will go.
In the blue corner we have the incumbent screen display technology, LCD – used in laptops, smartphones, and a mythical tablet device from Cupertino. On the plus side it offers great colour and it works beautifully for moving displays (ie screen-scrolling and video streaming). But it has two major drawbacks – it drains batteries something rotten, which is why a cute little iPhone rips a whole in your pocket and begs to be recharged before the day is done. And it has a backlit display, which for reading text soon leads to eyesore and fatigue.
In the read (ho hum) corner we have the challenger, eInk – and its various cousins. Its defining features are precisely the opposite of LCD; whilst we can assume that the next 12 months will bring us reasonable colour eInk displays, the very reason that eInk displays are so battery-efficient (and therefore lightweight) is that they only consume energy for screen refreshes. So even though today’s sluggish refresh times will surely improve, eInk will never be able to cope with video or screen scrolling. And every effort to finesse this drawback will compromise their basic advantages – ie lightweight & long-life. So their current use in eReaders – the simple, page-by-page transcription of black-and-white books – is pretty good.
However, if eReaders are going to move into the mainstream, won’t they have to be capable of a lot more than simply reproducing B&W books? They want to take on newspaper and magazine content, as well as textbooks. Let alone being capable of general web-browsing. And each of these media are inexorably becoming fully interactive, drawing on both static text/images alongside video.
So what are the implications of either side winning? Either eInk’s advantages in term of weight and visual acuity will win the day, and we’ll see a platform which preserves, as a sort of digital apartheid, the basic division between print and broadcast media. Or the world will choose to lug around eyesore-inducing LCD devices, triggering a genuine revolution and convergence between print and broadcast media.
And of course the corporates are lining up on either side of this revolutionary divide too, with Amazon/Sony/Plastic Logic on the one hand, and Apple/Microsoft on the other… who do you think will win?
…had a host of hosting problems. All now resolved and my next post aims to get you thinking!
I am going to be speaking about eReaders at this event in London on Thursday 19 November. SIPA (Specialised Information Publishers Association) runs great events with excellent networking, so I’m sure the discussion will be fruitful.
I am going to be speaking about eReaders at this event in Peterborough on 27th April, being run by @carolynmorgan of Penmaen Media