What should publishers do about the iPad
Mar 09, 2010 in Media, On-line
I’ve written about the iPad (we called it the “tablet” just a few short months ago) a few times but with the fabled device now really just around the corner (it’s scheduled to ship in April) and big names promising content for the platform and rolling out fancy demos and videos (Wired’s concept is above). It’s really time for publishers to really think about what to do with Apple’s iPad.
Martin Langeveld has a must-read post on what publishers need to consider when plotting their iPad strategies. A few key points that jumped out at me:
1) the iPad isn’t just a big iPhone
It looks like a big iPhone, it might even function like a big iPhone, but its size and power means we’ll interact with it in very different ways. Case in point, shopping:
iPad will showcase merchandise and services far better than smartphones, and iPad will claim more leisure time than deskbound computers or smartphones. Consumers with iPads will be connected to the Web in far more places, with far more engagement (relative to smartphones), presenting far more opportunities for direct marketing and sales than any previous interface.
2) It will further devastate some types of print advertising (see this earlier article from the Daily Beast)
Direct mail barons your days are numbered (good riddance). Those weekly flyers that fall out of your Saturday paper? Kiss them goodbye. The latter would be very bad for newspapers that have already seen ads gutted by the internet and the economy.
3) Think fast
No one is really sure how this whole iPad thing will shake out. So don’t get wedded to one single strategy. Think fox not hedgehog.