News Publishers Launch Joint Venture Targeting Digital Content Distribution
Cond Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. today jointly announced that they have entered into an independent venture to develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices.
Rumors of collaboration among major magazine publishers looking to prepare for Apple's much-rumored entrance into the tablet market have been circulating in recent months, with word of the specific joint venture appearing late last month.While today's press release provides little specific information on plans for the new venture, it offers four goals for creating a flexible and robust framework to allow magazine publishers to offer their content and advertising on a variety of portable devices.
The goal of this digital initiative is fourfold, to create: a highly featured common reading application capable of rendering the distinctive look and feel of each publication; a robust publishing platform optimized for multiple devices, operating systems and screen sizes; a consumer storefront offering an extensive selection of reading options; and a rich array of innovative advertising opportunities.
With a growing number of devices capable of accessing media content, from the iPhone and other smartphones to dedicated e-readers to Apple's forthcoming tablet, publishers have recognized the potential for new revenue streams as well as the need to streamline the process for offering content for this wide variety of devices.Top Rated Comments
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I understand that premium content, will always be premium and come with a price. But for the majority of consumers and publishers out there, paying for information that can be obtained faster and for free is now the standard. Can you imagine PAYING for twitter?
Apple's attempt at saving paid, printed media via the tablet, should be a fascinating experiment. I wish them well for the stockholder's sake, but this is an extremely risky venture.
iTunes is a break-even venture for Apple, but it sells a boat load of iPods and iPhones! Same thing here.
Other iPhone-like apps, even OSX apps, would add resiliency to Apple's product if the paid digital content doesn't take off.
It isn't risky for Apple, as it will only be providing the hardware. The actual content (through iTunes, etc.) generates revenue (hopefully) for the news companies.
iTunes is a break-even venture for Apple, but it sells a boat load of iPods and iPhones! Same thing here.
The thing is with music, if you screw up the iTunes Music Store, record labels and artists might whine and move on.
When you screw up a promise to save The Media with paid content, The Media tells on you. Apple has a PRISTINE image right now in the eyes of The Media. If that tarnish that relationship, there could be a backlash from news outlets, media corporations and content publishers that billions of subscribers will see.
If Apple releases the tablet, subsidized, and sales don't go well, and this entire paid digital content venture becomes a waste for those who invested heavily in it; Apple may be blamed. Fair or unfair.
Maybe I'm being cynical, but is it really a good idea to develop a software standard for non-existent hardware? Are they really creating anything more substantial than a glorified flash page? Aren't there OS specific APIs that they should be concerned about? Could this potentially lock them out of a future hardware design? So many questions...
Indeed. I think they're just scared of Apple (while they should be excited) and trying to get out of the gate first, with something, anything... in a futile attempt to preserve control and shovel some sand against the inevitable tide of Apple's tablet+iTunes dominance of the entire publishing marketplace.
The companies (music, media, whatever) that fear and complain about Apple are more focused on control than on pleasing the customer.
Pffffft, why can't they embrace new things instead of whining.
It seems hard to conclude that they're not. I understand that people want everything for free. Things like fashion magazines, if anything, probably have the most potential for this, since they're heavily advertiser subsidized to begin with. But they need some tools put in place to create an enticing market for advertisement. The problem with web advertisement today is that is wildly out of sync with what the website's customers want, on most websites. The ads in the magazines I used to read in print -- a business process and technology that is now decades old -- were in much better alignment with my interests than the best of web ads.
Otherwise, the bottom line of wanting free, quality content, without ads, is that it is not a sustainable business model. Twitter is hardly a replacement for the New York Times, and Perez Hilton's blog is hardly a replacement for GQ.
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