Wired US are going to be the first magazine on iPad. Not a big surprise, but a great move by them from a business and PR perspective.

The video above is brilliant. It pitches Wired and Condé Nast at the cutting edge of global magazine publishing, which they are. Their audience and advertisers are going to want to be part of this, partly because they are exactly the sort of people who are already planning to buy an iPad and willing to advertise on them but also because Wired are being so open, sharing so much and creating such interest in what they are doing.

The product itself doesn’t look finished or as good as it can be yet and it probably wont be perfect on day one, but it’s a great start.

We are at a point where technology is going to enable us to view and consume media in an entirely new way whether it’s on paper, mobile devices or iPhones or the iPad there are going to be a number of ways that people want to engage with that content.”

This is just adding one more avenue of communicating and connecting with the brand of Wired”

Scott Dadich, Creative Director, Wired

Scott puts it really well. This isn’t the only platform magazine content will be delivered through. People will access magazine content using a variety of different touch points. But this format is definitely a place the magazine needs to be if it has a future and one with which, certainly for Scott’s audience, will offer a valuable addition to their favourite brands’ product portfolio.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for… an opportunity to use all these visual tools at our disposal and tell these stories in a way that is efficient [and] multi dimensional, but we also think it’s an opportunity to reset the economics, for the first time people may value this experience so much that they’ll pay for it.”

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-chief, Wired

And they will pay for it. Why? It isn’t complicated and doesn’t need over dressed with meaningless jargon, which often spews out of some executive mouths like they’ve downed a pint of carbonated Cuprinol.

It will work because, as Chris Anderson says, it allows us to do all the things print publications are so good at and which their audience love so much, but now translate that to a digital medium in a way that is appropriate.

It’s not just a case of putting a PDF on a computer screen and asking people to pretend they are turning the page, something has been born here, which looks like it can evolve into a product that will deliver audiences a meaningful, high-value media experience.

Brilliant. Well-done Wired!

I was sent this article

The point I have a problem with is below.

The end of frequency
Say goodbye to the idea of monthly magazines, or weeklies, or dailies. Print publications, already under siege by the Internet and 24-hour news cycle, will have to learn to adapt to a world of instantaneous updates. This is most obvious for news and business publications, but it’s just as true for fashion, entertainment and specialized titles.”

Luke Hayman, 2010

I disagree with Luke, I would have written something like this.

The rebirth of frequency
Say hello to the idea of monthly, weekly or daily digital magazines. Print publications, which have seen their audience decimated by the unbundling of content on websites can take control of their content once again. News publications by their nature require instantaneous updates the feature led niche subject matter found in magazines doesn’t. The iPad may provide a consumer platform for a digital equivalent to a monthly, weekly or daily magazine.”

Me, 2010

Putting news, business, fashion, entertainment and specialized titles in the same bracket confuses the issue. Newspapers and magazines are fundamentally different platforms, which are consumed in a very different way by their respective readers and in turn deserve different digital platforms.

Luke comments himself that “Print publications [are] already under siege by the Internet and [a] 24-hour news cycle” the modern news cycle isn’t part of the way modern magazines need to operate. While touching on topical issues magazines are predominantly feature led and nowhere near as time or location sensitive as a newspaper.

I also have a problem with Luke referring to the Internet like it is a medium (“under siege by the Internet”). It isn’t, the Internet is a place, print publications are under siege by websites.

Websites by their nature make bundling content rather difficult. The iPad as a medium may be able to deliver bundles more effectively in a fundamentally different way to websites. As Jony Ive comments in the iPad launch video though “In many ways this defines our vision, our sense of what’s next”. It isn’t the final solution, but it is a start.

When Bonnier published their Mag+ research at the end of last year they commented that audiences like “an editorial package” and “an infinite, endlessly expanding RSS feed” makes it difficult for an audience to really engage and relate to a content provider. Audience like a package they can “read through and finish”. I agree.

Audiences like a bundle of content, it’s not a bad thing for them to want and it’s not a bad thing for us to want to provide. The birth of the iPad does in no way whatsoever signal the imminent death of monthly, weekly or daily magazines, it signals their renaissance.

The December issue of US Esquire sold itself as the Augmented Reality Issue. This means you can hold up certain pages that contain a special barcode in front of a computer with a webcam, which has a specific piece of software installed and are shown images, videos and audio that relate to the page you’re on. It’s really good fun!

Benjamin Palmer from Barbarian Group who put the augmented reality application together comments that.

What we’re trying to do is create something that isn’t just about showing off the technology, but actually adds to the story.

Benjamin Palmer, 2009

And it does, it’s the best issue of US Esquire I’ve ever read, actually it’s the only issue of US Esquire I’ve ever read, but isn’t that the point. Being brave and taking a risk can put you back on the map for readers and advertisers. That’s always a good thing.

This issue of US Esquire is engaging, exciting, inspirational and makes you feel intimately involved with the magazine (look I’m in the background!). If that’s not good for brand building then I don’t know what is.

Although it’s fun and I’d love to make something with this technology it’s really just a publicity stunt, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I hope it gave US Esquire a sales boost and I hope they are back on the map for some readers who might have lost interest in their brand.

Trying something new like this is brilliant for the industry and Esquire should be congratulated for giving it a go and hopefully inspiring others to take similar risks. Because sometimes, as in this case, they pay off!

The comment around consuming “an editorial package” is important, people will always look to find the linear prescript narrative that magazines can provide, it’s hard to do this with “an infinite, endlessly expanding RSS feed”, which due to its non-linear nature doesn’t have the same defined end point which we can see people do still enjoy in print magazines.

I think the feeling that you have finished something, and hopefully enjoyed it, adds value and breeds an audience that feels more engaged with the brand as a provider of content. As a reader you are then more likely to return to the same branded editorial package, thus building a dedicated digital readership which has massive commercial value.

Is this the future of magazines? Possibly, but it is massively dependant on the hardware which enables it to happen.

Become Street Fighter allows users to very easily include a picture of their own face on the character in the video. You can then embed the video that is created on a variety of different sites including Facebook and Myspace.

This is a brilliant example of how making commercial media an intimate experience for users and allowing viral distribution through social networks can have a positive impact on the way people form a relationship with a product or brand.

Creating a video like this takes no longer than 1 minute if you already have the pictures. No registration pages or forms to fill out, just upload your pics, get your video and that’s it.

The system is built using technology made by 15secondtv, which renders the face from an uploaded picture on to the video a user has selected to create the final video.

This is an overwhelmingly positive commercial experience, which is infinitely more memorable than a normal game trailer and should therefore have much more of an impact in driving sales of the game.

The recent announcement of Google Latitude doesn’t really come as much if a surprise. It’s a fairly obvious if not slightly scary development for them to make.

Yesterday when I was downloading some new applications for my iPhone I came across a GPS tracker app. I’ve yet to test it out but it sounds like a really interesting application if you want to track a journey and then display the route later on.

In the top review, below the application on the iTunes App Store, this was left.

I sent this tweet about it at the time. Here’s a grab of the full screen.

Although it is amusing and quite possibly a joke, it does bring home the level to which tracking our location can limit our freedoms, even if those freedoms are not completely ethical sometimes.

A couple of weeks ago when Stephen Fry was on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross he mentioned that he had recently sent a tweet detailing which flight he was on and as a result was met by pap photographers when he landed. Some celebs might seek that sort of attention, for them letting everybody know where they are might he a good thing, for the vast majority it isn’t. However Google’s Latitude system is strictly an opt in service which doesn’t have an open API so you just share your location on a closed network with close friends and family you select.

Individually tracking where everybody is, is not the objective of this system. It is to allow there to be a more accessible interface between the physical and digital worlds we live in; one that will aid the sense that the digital social networks we build are grounded in reality.

Although I haven’t had much time to play them recently I love games and so do millions around the world. I’ve got an Xbox 360 and a PS3 both of which offer the ability to download content.

On the Xbox Live marketplace You can download films, music videos, games and updates. These features are also available on PS3 but I have not used them much so for the purpose of this post I’ll concentrate on Xbox.

As I did yesterday I want to keep thinking along the lines of the ways in which brands can adapt, evolve and diversify their offering using the network to enable their consumers to be reached and by monetized by the brand in new and exciting ways, which add value to the ownership of the product and the brand in question.

In April 2004 I wrote my university dissertation about games. It was entitled “Does Non-Linearity Improve or Diminish the Player’s Experience of a Narrative Within a Videogame?”

It concluded with the following paragraph

Instead of being a projection of our feelings, which a completely non- linear narrative would be, a prescripted narrative gives “us something safely outside ourselves (because it is made by somebody else) upon which we can project our feelings.” (Murray, 2001: 100), prescripted narrative does not diminish but enrich the experience of a narrative.”

Me, 2004
Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck, 2001.

Essentially as players, readers, watchers and listeners we always need an author outside of our self to have a satisfying unexpected narrative experience.

This is still true and for games publishers is brilliant news in the current climate because their networked products allow consumers to access media at their convenience and without any middle man, which means the price point is reduced while maintaining a healthy profit margin, essential to allow the flow of revenue into a business when prohibitively high prices drive people away from investing £40-50 a time in a new game.

Microsoft have perfectly positioned their Xbox business for changes in the economic climate and have an incredibly diverse set of consumer offerings available to help their business and their consumers a way to ride out the storm while still making money and enjoying narrative content.

I am really interested to see how GTA IV: The Lost And Damned sells when it is released soon. It’s an expansion pack which requires that the gamer has purchased an copy of the original copy of the game, so have already made a sizeable investment in that narrative. Those investors are now required to make an additional payment to download the expanded narrative content over the Xbox Live marketplace. GTA is the fastest selling game of all time shifting over 6 million copies in the first week alone, I’d estimate that the game has now sold in excess on 20m units (I will check this with Rockstar tomorrow and update) so the potential market for this expansion pack HUGE.

Microsoft paid Rockstar $50m in order to make the expansion pack exclusive to Xbox 360, it will not be available on the PS3, a wise investment in trying economic times? YES.

More games are following suit with expansion packs being released for Fallout 3 and others which extend the life of the product (Microsoft made a mistake in not planning an expansion pack for HALO3) whilst taking more revenue which traditional online play offers the opportunity for.

Couple all of that with the ability for consumers to pay small amounts to download movies and Microsoft have created a networked money making machine.

As I write this I am watching the US Open final (the score is currently 3-3 in the second, Federer having taken the first set comfortably 6-2).

I am watching it on justin.tv a service which is presumably illegal but has a thriving community sharing paid for premium sports content, in this case they are streaming Sky Sports 1, which normally requires a subscription to view. I am watching on a stream with another 21,934 people according to the viewer counter, which is updated live. Like me they will all not have a subscription to the original broadcasters service.

Of the top ten most viewed streams 9 are currently the US Open final with a total amount of viewers numbering 45,439 world wide. The 9 different pages could essentially be seen as channels on justin.tv are showing exactly the same game and together they have more viewers than most small UK TV channels. Incredible when you think about it.

As well as allowing users to watch the game they can also engage in a debate running alongside the content, most of the debate I have to say is completely unrelated to the content but I think that in the correct setting users would use the chat tools to contextually debate the content they are watching which would be a beneficial to the activity of viewing the content and make the process more meaningful and rewarding.

Over the coming years content providers like Sky, whose footage is being essentially stolen here, will need to tackle this problem, how they do that directly is not an easy question to answer when their whole business model is built around hardware, installation and subscription.

One thing that is certainly on their side and will be pivotal to future developments is the quality of the video. If I had a subscription to Sky Sports I could be watching it in HD on a big LCD screen as it is I get an idea of what’s going on but its not the same by any stretch of the imagination. I am not sure the Internet it its current form will ever compete on the grounds of video deliver because the hardware and bandwidth is so different to that on Sky.

The score is now 5-1 in the third and Federer is 2 sets up. I’ve enjoyed the game so far but not as much as I would have done if I had watched it on TV.

The release of this comic detailing the technology involved with the browser. It is an informative and entertaining way to educate the tech community about the new product and has been beautifully illustrated by Scott McCloud.

It all sounds rather wonderful and if as detailed it can speed up the web as promised it will be a very welcome advancement.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.”

googleblog.blogspot.com

The development which I think users will be most fond of is the “Tab Page” which is dynamically built using the page you view most frequently, searches you have recently made and pages you have chosen to recently bookmark. Developments like this that don’t require users to do any manual management are going to be so popular with regular everyday users who don’t want to open an account with net vibes in order to be automatically presented with the content they want.

I can’t wait to have for the Google browser to be released. It sounds great.

The actual piece of journalism itself is not by the citizen but an BBC journalist. The article as a result becomes a collaborative effort between the citizen and journalist.

This video has probably been uploaded using the BBC’s upload system which can be found here. It’s also the sort of video that might well have been sent via ShoZu which I looked at recently.

While the image quality of the recording in this video is a bit lacking it adds a real life element to the story which makes it more engaging and meaningful for the users viewing it. I have to say I am slightly disappointed that the person who submitted the video has not been asked to give his/her account of the scene when they arrived instead relying on others statements. The submitter also has not been given any credit, which they always should be, it’s a motivator for others to do the same.

The video really brings the story to life while not having the ability to show professional footage of the scene. It’s also fantastically cost effective. I am sure this story will be shown on TV using footage taken from a helicopter which will probably cost thousands to film. If you have somebody on the scene with a camera phone it’s free (or probably £50 if the owner of the footage asks).

People pull their phone out all the time now to take pictures and videos of things they see happening around them. Those videos are being used more and more on TV and the Internet. The first instance of mobile video and pictures being used heavily was the 07/07 terror attacks on the London underground lots of people who were on the tube being evacuated pulled out their phone and recorded their experience.

Over the coming years I am sure collaborative citizen journalism will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of web based news as people become more and more familiar with it’s use they will want to become actively involved in its production and delivery.

Links:
- No Casual Operation: Inside a Citizen Journalism Newsroom
- CBS launches citizen journalism upload site
- Value of citizen journalism
- Citizen-Journalism Site Relaunches With New Features – nowpublic.com
- Bleacher Report Takes Citizen Journalism to Fox Sports