Content Matters

Amazon e-Books Outselling Hardcovers: What is the Impact?

Barry Graubart — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:40:19 PDT

Twitter was abuzz yesterday with links to this New York Times article quoting Amazon as saying that eBooks in the Kindle format are now outselling hardcovers.

So, what does that really mean and what does it tell us?

First, the details behind the headline (since Nick Carr suggests we rarely bother to click through). According to Amazon, for the past three months, eBooks have outsold hardcover books by a ratio of more than 1.4-to-1. In other words, for every 100 hardcovers sold, they sold 143 eBooks. And that ratio has increased to 1.8 to 1 over the past four weeks.

That’s pretty impressive, considering the Kindle store has been open less than three years. There are fewer than 5 million Kindle-compatible readers (excluding phones) out there today, a small fraction of the book-reading audience.

Amazon has been extremely successful at managing a multi-channel device strategy. While pushing its own reader, the uptick since the iPad launch makes it clear that a lot of those eBooks are being read on the iPad. In the Times story, Amazon suggests that the iPad is a different device and is not competitive to the Kindle. While that may be true to some extent, it's naive to suggest that it won't have any impact. As an iPad user, I can't see myself buying a Kindle device. That said, I still use both Apple and Amazon libraries. While I prefer the iBooks app to the Kindle on the iPad, the Kindle has a much larger library of titles, so what I can’t get in iBooks format, I will buy in Kindle form.

It also shows that price wars have helped shift e-readers from novelty gadgets to mainstream products, suitable for young and old. Just 12 months ago, I’d perhaps see 1 Kindle user during my daily commute; today, there are likely to be 5-6 commuters using Kindles, iPads or Nooks in a single car on my train. The Kindle price has dropped to $189 while the Barnes & Noble Nook is priced at $149. As they approach the magical $99 price point, they’ll become an impulse purchase and adoption will continue to grow.

The audience for eReaders is surprisingly diverse. While the typical technology early adopter is a 30-45 year-old male, eReader users seem equally distributed by gender and run all ages. 40+ readers have found the adjustable font size makes life easier, while teens and tweens are adopting them as well. The student market is likely to explode in the next 12-24 months. Barnes & Noble recently inked a deal with Blackboard to pursue the high school textbook market. I’ll be shocked if by the time my 11-year-old enters college she uses any printed textbooks.

What’s the likely impact?

The rapid adoption of eReaders will no doubt have a huge impact on the publishing industry.

First, the good news. Users of eReaders tend to read a lot more than others. It’s no surprise that when you can carry as many books as you’d like in one device, you’ll buy more than if you had to carry each individually. So, despite lower prices, revenue and profits should see a noticeable bump.

It will be interesting to see, over time, how the reading patterns of users on dedicated readers, such as the Kindle or Nook, compare to those on multi-function devices like the iPad. While I have a couple of books in progress on my iPad, I’m more likely to read RSS feeds, use a news app or read Twitter much of the time.

At the same time, eReaders should quickly bring some level of disintermediation to an industry where publishers and distributors have incredible power. For bestselling titles, those blockbusters with 7-figure advances for name-brand authors, publishers will still hold court. But for long-tail titles, which never received much marketing support from their publishers, there is likely to be great change. I’d expect a new market to emerge, where PR and marketing professionals help self-published authors drive awareness of their titles.

On the channel side, it seems likely that the Big 3 will dominate. Amazon, Apple and Google (with their soon to be launched Google Editions, a store which will drive users to multiple channels for purchase) are likely to vie for dominance in the eReader market.

Barnes & Noble looks like it can be at least a niche player and can leverage its existing relationships to potentially dominate the educational market.

That leaves question marks for companies like Borders and Wal-Mart. Borders has been on shaky ground for quite a while and despite launching its own eReader software, seems more likely to follow the Blockbuster video path than to find success. Wal-Mart has established itself as a dominant bookseller and has reach into many households which Amazon and Apple don’t reach today. Yet it’s hard to see what their value proposition will be in a segment where pricing is generally set by the publisher.

Similar challenges will be felt by independent booksellers, already an endangered group. Traditionally, these businesses thrived by their personal, hands-on touch. A market where awareness will be a huge challenge suggests a potential role for the independents, perhaps as affiliates to Amazon or Google, yet even that model suggests that a physical presence no longer serves a purpose.

Many have argued that the endearing qualities of physical books would make many hesitate to give them up. I have fond memories of wandering the “miles of aisles” at the Strand Bookstore. Yet, just as with digital music, it’s apparent that convenience and improved functionality can easily trump sentiment. Of course I still haven’t figured out how to get an author to personalize and sign a copy of an eBook.

What a Long, Strange Marketing Trip It’s Been

Barry Graubart — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:06:00 PDT

It’s no surprise that a key to innovation is rejecting conventional wisdom. And innovation thrives in many businesses, particularly those in the technology space. But whether in silicon valley or silicon alley, marketing is still largely done in the same way it has for decades. Companies hire PR firms who push out press releases, while marketers post product info to web sites and create factsheets for their sales staff.

Marketers may dabble with new approaches, sticking a toe into the social media space by creating a Facebook fan page or setting up an official Twitter account, but even then most apply old approaches to new platforms. Knowledge is shared through boring white papers which sit behind a registration wall while Twitter accounts push out links to bland press releases or staid marketing messages.

When it comes to breaking the rules of marketing and rejecting conventional wisdom, David Meerman Scott (literally) has written the book. And now, he’s joined together with HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan to author a new book, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead.

It’s not the first time that David has written about the Grateful Dead. Readers of his book World Wide Rave may recall a discussion framed by asking whether you wanted to be like Led Zeppelin, whose historic reunion show at the O2 arena was not made available in video format (and where YouTube was forced to remove clips posted by fans), or like the Grateful Dead who, long before the days of Facebook and social media, encouraged concert attendees to record their shows, even setting up special sections where they could plug in to the soundboard to get better quality recordings.

As the book pointed out:

If you want to remain relevant in an always-on, fan-centric, YouTube world, you need to embrace—not restrict—your most important supporters. You need to believe in the power of a World Wide Rave to sell your products and services.

In this new book, David and Brian take a look back at how the Dead worked to develop and nurture an active community of fans, then show how to apply many of those same techniques to today’s marketing platforms. For example:

Rethink traditional industry assumptions – Rather than focus on record albums as a primary revenue source (with touring to support album sales), the Dead created a business model focused on touring.

(blogger note: if you’ve read what Fred Wilson and others have written suggesting media companies look to monetize the audience, not the content, this is a great example)

Bypass accepted channels and go direct – The Grateful Dead created a mailing list in the early 1970s where they announced tours to fans first. Later,they established their own ticketing office, providing the most loyal fans with the best seats in the house.

The foreword to the book is written by one of the biggest (literally and figuratively) Deadheads, former UCLA and NBA great Bill Walton. As he so eloquently describes it:

Their passion, creative spirit, imaginative soul, and industrious commitment to promote truth, fairness, justice, and the Grateful Dead way led them through the evolutionary transition where they went from playing for silver to playing for life. This book tells you how to make that transition for your own career.

David Scott’s books are always practical, insightful and a fun read. Fans of his prior books won’t be disappointed here. Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead may be his finest book to-date.

Why Most Pay Walls Will Fail (and a potential solution)

Barry Graubart — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:12:52 PDT

Walls. They're going up everywhere, or so it seems.
Times Online put up its pay wall last week, and now Time has put up a wall (just a wall, not a pay wall since you can't buy the content through the site), with many other publishers poised to follow. At the same time, numerous publishers see the iPad as their savior, giving them the opportunity for a mulligan, somehow erasing all of the web experiences of the past ten years.

I'm all for publishers experimenting with business models, in fact we've had too little experimentation in recent years. But I'm also pretty convinced that most of these pay walls will fail.

Let's start with Time.
The Time business model has some deep flaws. First of all, it's a newsweekly in a world where news breaks in real-time. And while it does employ some quality journalists, it is not easily differentiated from other news media, either online or in print. Other than perhaps the Person of the Year issue, when was the last time you sought out Time either online or off?

In its latest effort to boost subscription revenue, Time removed the full text of all its articles, providing only short snippets with no way to purchase the full article. Users have three choices:
1. Buy it in print
2. Buy it for iPad
3. Ignore it and find another source.

Most of us will likely choose option 3. There are far too many substitutes out there to pay a premium for the iPad edition or to buy the printed copy. If course there may be special editions which drive interest, spiking newsstand sales or iPad downloads.

Time's sibling, Sports Illustrated is taking a similar approach and I have little doubt that the swimsuit issue will set records for iPad magazine downloads. But SI has already given up on selling advertising directly and today announced a deal to have sister company Turner take over responsibility for SI.com. And Time may find it's overplayed its hand. Will many purchase the Person of the Year issue? Some will, but for most, simply finding out who is named Person if the Year is enough. Once that curiosity is satisfied, users may be unwilling to pay for the detail available through a subscription.

And that's the biggest challenge with these paywalls. Unless your content is unique and compelling, it will be impossible to build a substantial paid audience. Large brands, once they lose their audience, run the risk of becoming irrelevant.

Many have suggested that as most news sites move their content behind the paywall, users will have no choice but to subscribe. I question that logic. Even if you could move all the newspapers behind the paywall today (and do so without raising antitrust/collusion issues), new competitors will spring up. And, let’s face it, there’s no way you’ll get all the news products in a market to act in the same way. While Times Online has put up its pay wall, the Guardian has continued to push content to the open web. A key problem for the news industry is the glut of sources; as some of those sources remove their content from the open web, others will see that as a huge opportunity to gain traffic.

The web has clearly devalued the general interest, broadly read publications. This is most pronounced with the news weeklies, but even entertainment-oriented magazines will struggle. In order to remain relevant, magazines like People will have to provide more exclusive content, which will likely drive up their cost structure. For the general gossip info, such as the travails of Lindsay Lohan, users will go to TMZ or another free site. Ironically, it’s the niche products that will likely do well with paywalls, as there are few free substitutes. Enthusiast magazines, which often got the bulk of their revenue from newsstand sales, will have more flexibility in using paywalls or removing their content from the free web, while mainstream products will suffer.

What’s the solution?
As Forrester’s Nick Thomas recently wrote in his Publishers Need Popcorn Not Paywalls post (using a line originated by Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson) publishers must look to monetize the audience not the content. It’s something that publishers have not been very good at but that eCommerce and other digital businesses have mastered. Content providers will have to come up with the right mix of brand advertising, eCommerce, lead generation and other tools in order to become profitable.

I also think we may start to see some interesting acquisitions as eCommerce and other businesses may begin to acquire traditional publishers. An example came earlier today when FriendFinder Networks, an adult social media site, announced its intent to bid for Playboy Enterprises. FriendFinder, which previously acquired Penthouse magazine, clearly sees an opportunity to monetize these brands beyond simple content subscriptions. And while adult content may have its own unique characteristics, I could see other, more mainstream companies acquiring magazines with strong brands. How about a few of these potential deals:

Guitar Center could acquire Guitar Player Magazine
Dick’s Sporting Goods could acquire Ski Magazine
Travelocity could acquire Travel + Leisure

If publishers can’t find alternative means to monetize their audience, then I expect to see more and more creative deals where companies with a proven ability to monetize their traffic acquire the content that drives it.

To go mainstream, Foursquare needs to become more like Groupon

Barry Graubart — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:36:34 PDT

Foursquare has done a good job of attracting the early adopters – hypersocial mobile data users. If you’re young, single and living in an urban area (or a college town), the value proposition is huge.

The next stage of adoption (and monetization) is likely to be a tougher hurdle. There are two obvious directions for Foursquare expansion: digital-savvy business users and shoppers.

While shoppers are the larger (and more attractive) demographic, let’s start with the digital-savvy business users. By this, I’m referring to those who are probably active on Twitter, but are beyond their bar-hopping days. These users (and I fall into this category), get the value of social media, yet struggle to find real value in Foursquare. I know that I use Foursquare much more heavily when I travel than when I am in the office. Check-ins at clients are typically not appropriate and a daily check-in at Starbucks and the office just isn’t that exciting.

The more attractive market is the local shopping market; I’m using shopping in the broad sense – in addition to goods, it could be food, drink and other services. This is also the place where Foursquare expects to generate its revenues – through promotional marketing offers. Yet, so far, the promotional offers have been somewhat lame.

The dominant offer, at least for those in major cities, comes from Starbucks. I’ve got five Starbucks within a stone’s throw of my office, so any check-ins in this area will likely yield the yellow “special nearby” sign with an offer from Starbucks. Yet that offer is sort of pathetic: Become Mayor of Starbucks and get $1 off on a drink. But that’s a pretty limited deal. It took @michaelwolf 76 visits to become Mayor of his local Starbucks.

Last week, when I was in London, it only took me about a half-dozen check-ins at the Starbucks on Old Broad to become Mayor, but that wouldn’t happen in New York or San Francisco. And what you often find is that the Mayor of a given Starbucks happens to be one of the baristas.

Checking in over and over in hopes that you, like Michael Wolf, may get $1 off on a frappucino, after dropping $200 just isn’t likely to get the mainstream user to adopt Foursquare.

Compare those offers to what you see on Groupon. The typical Groupon offer is 50% off or more. Recent deals I’ve received were for 67% off from Wine Insiders, 50% off skating at Chelsea Piers and 53% off at the NY Hall of Science. Those offers are why Groupon is experiencing huge growth. A chance to be the one person that day who qualifies for a buck off a frappucino just won’t motivate users.

Perhaps enabling rewards for multiple check-ins (e.g. everyone who checks in 5 times this week gets a half-priced coffee) would probably get many more people interested. There are complications, of course (you don’t have to actually buy anything or even step foot inside a Starbucks to check-in), but those are things that Foursquare and its marketing partners will have to figure out.

There are many potential innovative offers that can leverage location-based services. Content providers could provide access to premium content to users checking in at a conference; wine brands could offer special deals on wine pairings at a restaurant. I can think of dozens of compelling offers that would make users more likely to check-in.

I think it’s inevitable that checking-in with location-based services will become mainstream in a few years. But if Foursquare wants to be the leader in this space, it needs to provide greater value to mainstream users.

Three Obvious Features That Twitter Should Add NOW

Barry Graubart — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:17:31 PDT

It’s good to see that Twitter is has introduced the new “You Both Follow” feature, which lets you look at a Twitter user and see whom you follow in common. My first reaction was “what took so long?” After all, one of the key inputs to any social system (online or off) is identifying who you have in common with other participants. Similar features have been available in other social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn for quite a while.

Since You Both Follow has only been rolled out to 10% of the user base, here's a screen shot of it (courtesy Mashable):

While they’re at it, here are a few similarly obvious features that Twitter should add right away:

You’re Both Followed By: this is the flipside of You Both Follow. Who are the people who follow both you and the Twitter user you’re viewing. This is probably just as important as You Both Follow; when assessing the credibility of another user, seeing that they are followed by people you respect makes you more likely to follow them as well.

Are they following me? Today, when I look at a user on Twitter, I can easily see whether I am already following the user. But, there’s no indication of whether they are following me. How many times have you tried to DM someone, only to see that they are not following you? A simple indicator “@graubart is following you” would make life a lot easier.

The ability to mine the social graph is a huge opportunity and there's no reason Twitter shouldn't expose these simple queries. Yes, there are ways to get at this info through third party sites, but it should be bundled right into the product.

And, while they're at it, the third feature Twitter should add is the temporary mute feature. When users are at a conference and are hyper-tweeting, or even getting a bit overenthusiastic during a sporting event (sorry to those not interested in the #StanleyCup), there should be a way to mute them. There are a few 3rd party tools that do this such as TweepSnooze or my favorite, Muuter (which supports user and/or keyword muting), but this should be part of the basic Twitter toolkit.

In addition to making these enhancements through the Twitter UI, these features should also be accessible through their API so that third party clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic can implement them as well.

iPad Content Sales: Impressive Start but Likely Unsustainable

Barry Graubart — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:32:17 PDT

The numbers are starting to come in and the early results for sales and downloads of content on the iPad are in many cases, impressive.

The highly touted Wired issue ($4.99) was downloaded 24,000 times in its first day and 62,000 to-date, grossing over $300k (netting $216k to Conde Nast).
Rupert Murdoch announced that the Times of London had sold 5,000 subscriptions at £9.99 per month.
The WSJ has reported 10,000 iPad customers, but hasn’t broken those out as to new subs vs. iPad access to those with existing wsjonline subscriptions.
The FT app has been downloaded by a reported 130,000 users.

Those who’ve suggested that the iPad will usher in a new model for content – a do-over for news services, see this as proof of their theory. Unfortunately, I think it’s more driven by the “I’ve got a shiny new toy; what else can I do with it” model.

It’s great that 62,000 users downloaded the Wired app. A lot of that can be attributed to all the hype that came with its release. Yet how compelling was the Wired app experience? I played with it a bit and came away underwhelmed. The reading experience was OK, but nothing really different from what I could get on the web. Most of the innovation, it seems, was aimed at the advertisers, providing interactive ways to play with an ad. OK, that’s pretty cool for a demo, but do I really want to pay $4.99 to play with a bunch of ads? Perhaps the greatest condemnation comes from the InterfaceLab blog:

What strikes me most about the Wired app is how amazingly similar it is to a multimedia CD-ROM from the 1990’s

I think Wired will be lucky to see 10% of those users (6,000) come back to buy the second monthly edition. A more realistic guess will be about 3,000 users, hardly enough to drive circulation revenue OR get their advertisers excited.

The Times of London subscribers may have a bit more depth to them, but I think they too will soon dissipate, especially since News Corp has decided to make this a separate subscription than either print or online. They will likely retain some users who drop print, but with so many news alternatives it will be a tough road for them. I expect we’ll see the numbers continue to grow in the next few months (especially since the iPad has only been on sale in the UK for a short time), and reaching 20-25k iPad users by year-end might be a realistic goal. Yet while cannibalizing their print subscribers may be a good tactic in some ways, it may also foster a set of users who learn that they can do without the product altogether.

Some of the other results are harder to interpret. WSJ figures don’t isolate new paid subscribers, so judging quality is impossible.

Similarly hard-to-judge is the FT, which is providing two months’ free service. My guess is that the conversion rate will be modest. Many of those users, of course, already have FT.com licences, so they will continue to use the iPad at no extra charge. For others, I’d expect a conversion rate in the 5% range.

That’s not to say that there are no success stories. The Times of London and FT may turn out to be a strong success, and I expect that the WSJ will do well on the iPad over time. I think that magazines will fare far worse. While newspaper usage will grow over time, I’ll be shocked if any future issues of Wired exceed the water mark set by the premier copy. An impulse purchase of a magazine for $5 at an airport newsstand or when heading to the beach makes sense. An impulse magazine purchase on the iPad, where you have the entire web at your fingertips, seems unlikely.

When I first got my iPhone, I downloaded many new apps, many free, some paid. Over time, I got developed a routine and today have around 90 apps on the phone, but only a dozen or so are in steady use (TweetDeck, NewsRack, NYT, Bloomberg, Facebook, FourSquare, Pandora, Sportacular, TripIt, a few guitar apps and some games that my daughter plays regularly). The majority of the initial 10-20 apps I downloaded have been relegated to the trash bin.

The same will occur for new iPad users. And with a good screen and browser, many iPad users will find that visiting the content provider’s website using Safari provides as good or better experience, which is not the case on the iPhone.

In the months to come we will see new and creative approaches to the iPad and other tablet devices. Publishers would be well-served in trying to find ways to create a compelling user experience that provides ongoing value, not simply a one-time gimmick.

Top 10 Bursts of Instant Karma When Flying

Barry Graubart — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:29:59 PDT

Face it. We all hate air travel and the days of getting upgraded to first class and eating ice cream sundaes are but a distant memory. But sometimes, flying doesn't have to be totally horrible. Our expectations have been driven so low that when a few little things occur that aren't completely abhorrent, it can bring a smile to your face. Here are 10 of the small, everyday awesome moments that let you know that you've got great flying karma that day:

(NOTE: 6 of these 10 have happened for me today, so I'm feeling very lucky).

1. Finding a seat in the waiting area within reach of the electrical outlet. Bonus: when both outlets are open, allowing you to charge iPhone + laptop (or Blackberry or iPad etc).

2. Oh no, oh no, oh no, ahhhh.... - that very large person who was eyeballing the seat next to you the entire time they were boarding just continued down the aisle, past your row.

3. An aisle seat most of the time, but landing a window seat that one time you need to catch a few hours of shuteye.

4."We're second in the queue for takeoff"

5. An electrical outlet at every seat (especially critical when #1 doesn't happen): Thank you Virgin!!

6. That moment when you put on the noise-cancelling headphones. It's like a burst of instant valium (or a burst of "Chynga" but there's only one person who'll know what I mean).

7. An open middle seat adjacent to you.

8. First noticing the infant or toddler seated in the row in front of you when you are deplaning. Could she really have slept the entire flight? (Had this happen on a recent flight to London).

9. "This is your captain speaking. We caught a pretty nice tailwind and we'll be landing 30 minutes ahead of schedule."

10. GoGo Inflight Wireless, turning the flight into a productive mix of work and social media updates. And, allowing me to post this to the blog from 35,000 feet.

For those curious, I've been lucky enough to experience #1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 10 so far today).

What are your favorite bursts of awesome flight karma? Post them to the comments.

The Two Horsemen of Tech: Google and Apple

Barry Graubart — Sun, 23 May 2010 21:04:11 PDT

For years, the four horsemen of technology were Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC), Dell (DELL) and Cisco (CSCO) (though some argued that IBM was the 4th). The first three dominated the desktop PC environment, while the fourth sold most of the plumbing used on the Internet.

During the past few years, there were debates over whether there were a new four horsemen. As recently as 2007, Cramer suggested that the new big four were Apple, Research in Motion, Google and Amazon.

What’s becoming rapidly clear is that for the foreseeable future, there are really only two horsemen of tech – Apple and Google, who together are poised to dominate almost every significant segment of the industry.

In some ways, it’s amazing to think how quickly Google and Apple have become competitors. It was only last August that Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from the Apple board due to potential conflicts of interest. At the time, those conflicts were largely focused on Android and Google Chrome O/S. Now, 9 months later, it seems almost unfathomable to think of Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt sitting around the same boardroom table.

Today, Google and Apple are vying for virtually every important technology space.

Android is quickly closing the technology gap on the iPhone. And while Apple is working hard to marginalize Adobe’s Flash; Google’s new Froyo version of Android includes Flash support.
In mobile advertising, the imminent release of Apples iAd platform was a critical factor in the FTC’s approval of Google’s acquisition of AdMob, a target Apple had pursued as well.
While Apple TV remains a poor stepchild, Google’s announcement last week of Google TV gives them the upper hand, at least in the near term.
There are rumors that Google is considering an acquisition of Catch Media, providing a platform for users to access music via Android devices. Previously, Apple outbid Google for Lala, a leading provider of streaming music in the cloud. It would not be surprising to see Google soon challenge iTunes with a cloud-based subscription music service.
And while the iPad is today’s must-have gadget, there will be a wide range of Android-based tablets hitting the market in the coming months

It will be interesting to watch how this plays out. Google taking the “open” approach, much as Microsoft and Dell did in the PC world, while Apple stays in the world of proprietary hardware and software. It's not clear which path will win, and I think it may vary by market. The multi-channel approach of Android is likely to give Google greater market share in mobile and tablet devices over time. And strong partnerships with both television and set-top-box manufacturers may allow Google to succeed in a market where Apple has failed to make headway. Yet the Apple approach has merits. If users view these devices as consumer electronics - like an iPod or a VCR, as opposed to computers, plug and play will be attractive to the mainstream user.

And where are Microsoft, HP, Cisco, RIM and other technology providers during all this? They still play important roles inside the enterprise, but are ceding the key advertising and mobile platforms to Google and Apple, the Two Horsemen of Technology.

There’s No Room for News Weeklies in a World of Real-Time Niches

Barry Graubart — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:10:00 PDT

Yesterday’s announcement by the Washington Post of their intention to sell Newsweek should come as no surprise. In fact, it wouldn’t have shocked me to see them announce they would simply shut it down. Yet many traditional media analysts still seem surprised by the news.

Time and Newsweek have held prominent positions in media history. For decades, it truly mattered what topic they chose to adorn their covers each Monday. In a world where news was dominated by the evening newscast, these two publications truly influenced the national agenda. But it’s been at least 15-20 years since either publication was truly relevant. As David Carr asked in a tweet yesterday, when was the last time you picked up a copy of Newsweek other than in a dentist office?

The impact of real-time news cannot be dismissed. Looking at the Newsday announcement itself, the first tweets appeared yesterday around 10:45am in a tweet by Anthony Edgecliffe-Johnson. Within 15-20 minutes, I’d seen 40-50 comments on the announcement in my tweetstream. In fact, when I saw a tweet “announcing” the sale yesterday afternoon around 2:30pm by Steve Rubel, I recall thinking “why is he tweeting old news as though it were just breaking?”.

I realize, of course, that only a small number of consumers are Twitter users, but cable news has the same impact. How many people have seen the photo of the Times Square bomber already? Would you buy an issue of Newsweek or Time next Monday if his picture were on the cover?

I can only think of three weekly news-oriented magazines which remain relevant to a wide audience. The Economist is successful largely on the quality of their writing, their willingness to do long-form stories which lend themselves to deeper analysis, and the fact that they bring a global (or at least European) perspective to world events. New York Magazine remains relevant because it covers stories that others don’t. They don’t have a new focus, though certainly have elements of news in their pages. For New Yorkers, they provide a mix of who, what & where that remains important, though I can see them threatened in the long run by various blogs from Gothamist to Gawker. The New Yorker remains relevant for some of the same reasons as the Economist. Long-form stories, often on topics barely touched on elsewhere, combined with fiction from top writers make the New Yorker a good read.

Newsweek certainly has some quality writers, Jonathan Alter and Fareed Zakaria among them. Yet their format doesn’t provide a forum for these writers to do quality investigative journalism. How much of a difference in quality shows through in a 500 word story? Let’s face it- Rolling Stone has probably produced more relevant and impactful articles on politics and finance in the past year than Time and Newsweek together.

Of course the key parlor game question is “who will buy Newsweek?” I’ll play along with a few suggestions (apologies to those who saw me tweet these yesterday morning – I guess blog posts can seem old compared to real-time tweets).

First, I’ll dismiss the one that many others have suggested. I don’t see any likelihood that Bloomberg will buy Newsweek. Yes, they have a lot of money and just bought Business Week, but their efforts to reach a wider audience don’t go as wide as Newsweek. Bloomberg wants to reach the corporate C-Suite, not Main Street. The new Bloomberg BusinessWeek gives them a great vehicle, in print and online, to do that, while providing more commentary to deliver through their terminals. Newsweek provides neither. So, those hoping to see a BloombergBusinessNewsWeek masthead will be disappointed.

News Corporation (NWS) could buy Newsweek. During its heyday, Newsweek was always a center-left publication, as compared to the more right-leaning Time under Henry Luce. From an ego standpoint, I can imaging Rupert Murdoch’s delight in moving Newsweek aggressively to the right. I can imagine his enjoyment in letting Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity sit behind the desk formerly inhabited by Ben Bradlee. Yet I see this as unlikely. Fox has print vehicles already (most prominently the WSJ) and I don’t see Newsweek as ultimately that attractive.

The Huffington Post or Politico should buy Newsweek. These alternative media have grown tremendously. HuffPo traffic is now ranked 10th among news with more than 13 million uniques in March. They have aggressively moved beyond politics, covering world events and local news. Yet the brand perception remains as a left-leaning political site. The Newsweek brand could bring instant credibility with a wider audience. While the print side of the business may not be that attractive, I could see where keeping print alive might bring them some advertisers they would otherwise not reach. If not, they could easily shut down the print operations a year or two from now, keeping the brand as an online-only news product.

For magazine publishers, the long-term question may be the one posed by Mathew Ingram:

Hopefully trade rags like Adweek and Mediaweek have already given some thought to their business model, but they might want to change their names while they're at it. And, in the world of real-time news, will we soon be saying that Women's Wear Daily and Investors Business Daily sound too static?

Flash is the number one reason Macs crash

Barry Graubart — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:58:25 PDT

Steve Jobs has written a post explaining why Apple doesn't plan to support Adobe Flash on its mobile devices. He makes some pretty compelling arguments.

He (accurately) describes Flash as being designed for the PC-based environment and not for the new mobile devices.

I'd suggest reading the full post, but here are the six reasons why Apple will not provide Flash support according to Steve Jobs:

Flash is closed: it's fully controlled by Adobe.
While 75% of web video is on Flash, most of that video is ALSO available in H.264 mobile format. The idea that without Flash you lose most of the video on the web is false.
Stability and Reliability: "We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it."
Battery Life: "on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained."
Touch: Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.
Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps.