It started with a random tweet in December 2010 (“Do you have a favorite font for every letter?”) and turned into an surprising back and forth between a hobby kabbalist (me) and a real type professor (Indra). Here is round one:

A is the mother. It’s the metaphysical Bull ∀ leaping from beyond into existence (beth).

B is (A[the mother']s) breast, the first contact with the reality.

C: the camel (gimel) carrying the bull(A) into existence(B)—through the door(D): sophisticated, classy and supernaturally strong.

D: as in Daleth—originally both a poor man & a door—elastic & tense: A bow. An empty pocket, dangerously hungry. Things are getting real from here.

E: the fork of the Belzebub. Enters through the eye causing Evil, ending in headache, emptiness, Ekel.

F: Clearly a fleshy fat phallus. A fucking machine gun.

G is a grown up C, conscious 7th letter, sensible & forgiving, great without pretention. The grandmother.

H: pompous, self-important, empty. Full of air, taking its space, imposing itself. Claiming territory. A construct, a fence. Sigh

I is the stinging pain from a full on fist punch (letter #9) coming from the legs with a straight arm right into your face.

J: ironic I. Connecting (i=splitting) in words—ending in numerals. Italy invented it—its Alphabet rejects it—embraced by GJermans.

K is the hand. It’s the letter that grabs you, draws you to itself, bites, chews, swallows and digests you. Kraft.

L is the lovely shepherd’s staff, while he plays the flute or the lyra, with his back against the tree.

M: Forma est omen! M: Marking the 1st middle of the ABC; the 1st sound we speak (before A), and end of the physical half of the ABC.

N: They say: ‘N’ pictured a water wave. They say: it’s the original M. No!—But ‘No’ is the central clock wheel of our mind [νοῦς]…

O: Circles are soft and perfect. So it might be astonishing—but it’s not a coincidence that N is followed by O before P. Why? See P.

P: Comical uncle Paul with his uncle hat & Popeye pipe sticking out his tongue. Let’s not fool ourselves, penises are ridiculous.

Q is the brain. And it’s the Queen of letters.

R is the toRso, the pRofile, it adds dRive and chaRacter. Acc to Plato the tongue is ‘least static and most vibrant’ pronouncing it.

S is the tooth, the Snake—smart and agile—evil at times—most beautiful—most difficult—it puts a spell on every word it sneaks into.

T Dumb and unpretentious like Atlas, T is the most stable and instable. It gives structure and proves to be very powerful in pairs.

U: the belly, the Unterleib. Intuitive, sensitive, deep, powerful, slow. Looks like an ABC-Urelement, but it’s not: It’s a deeper V.

V like Venus, vagina, vulva, literally spreads its legs. Unlike F, it’s not clearly obscene—but it’s rarely as innocent as it acts.

W’s Wild Magic turns everything upside down. The wicked witch of the alphabet.

X = “the thing.” Acting like the unknown by definition, it makes people watch, listen, think and speculate.

Y is the champagne glass among the letters. The classiest sister in the (f)uvwy family.

Z As the last sword stroke, it took some time for Z to defy O and T to become the guardian of the ultimate alphabetic void beyond.

You can discuss it on Google+. Also, make sure you don’t miss Indra’s full iABC collection.

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1. Absence of Features

1.1 Creating More Efficient Interfaces

The more you think about how you use your writing tool, the less energy you have to think about your writing. Building an app with fewer features is much harder than adding a bunch of settings and letting the user decide. You may call bullshit on whoever is trying to convince you that “the absence of a feature is as a feature”, but you however smart you are—you will have a hard time overthrowing Jef Raskin’s definition of the user interface:

The Interface is the way you accomplish tasks with a product; what you do and how it responds.”

What follows from this rule is that efficient user interfaces obey the basic rule of an interaction economy: Minimal input (“what you do”) with maximal output (“how it responds”). The logic consequence is that the less manipulations required by an interface to achieve its goal, the better it works. This is why we tried to avoid mouse interaction in the drafting process as much as possible. (Mouse interaction is expensive due to it’s find-point-and-click-model being less economic than keyboard interaction).

The downsides of trying to create a more efficient interface are that people will at first feel alienated, that it costs a lot to develop and that it’s success is not guaranteed. With iA Writer we deliberately took that risk by:

1. Stripping away many of the features of common text editors
2. Introducing three new features (automarkdown, focus mode, disappearing window bar).
3. Investing a lot of energy into details like cursor definition (it took us months to make that cursor work), typographic definition, transitions, fades and tiny shapes.

1.2 Development Time

The absence of features, the innovation in input-definition and the attention to detail is what took us over a year to develop the software from the information architecture (started January 2010) to the implementation (October 2010), optimization (January 2011) and bug fixing (March). Almost everything in iA Writer is custom built.

“Custom built” is, as such, not a positive quality (in general you should stick to the standards), but every deviation we took from UI standards was conscious and necessary. However, the risk you take when you deviate from UI standards is substantial:

1. Users get confused and frustrated when learned interaction patterns don’t work.
2. Programs with custom-built elements require more computational power and are slower.
3. You have to deal with an angry army of bugs.
4. Deviating from common standards leads to higher development costs.

If you want to innovate, you have no other choice but to go in a new direction. Judging from the sales and ecstatic feedback, we did the right thing with iA Writer. We will very probably reach our sales objective within a month, and more importantly iA Writer will make lots of writers happy.

2. Cost

2.1 Product Value (the Client’s Perspective)

In the eyes of the customer the value of a product is not proportional to its production cost. A beef filet cooked for 15 hours by 30 cooks doesn’t necessarily taste better than a cheeseburger. The customer doesn’t care how long it took you to do something. What customers look at is the exclusiveness and direct benefit of your offer. Or as Neven put it:

Pay $20 if you think you’ll get $20 of use out of the app. That is the only meaningful criterion to use.”

If your offer is exceptional, your price can and should be. If you offer an exceptional product at low price it will be perceived and treated as a low value product, no matter how amazing it is.

That the value of your product is also going to be perceived through its price is a fact. But it doesn’t mean that you should sell your text editor at $5,000 no matter what. You need to be realistic. You need to know what it is and you need to compare it with the market value. But be careful with what and whom you compare::

You can’t compare the price of Pages with that of iA Writer directly because the two pricing strategies have vastly different goals.”

Before deciding on the price we looked at pretty much all writing software on the market and decided to position ourselves between the highest and lowest offers. There is considerably more expensive writing software out there; even in the sector of so called “minimalist writing applications,” we are not the most expensive.

We are in the upper region of that sector though. Why? Because iA Writer is a beautiful, powerful and efficient new product. It does not only do its job, it feels fantastic to use. The vast majority customers confirmed, “it’s worth every penny”. You need to earn your value, and you earn it by making people happy that they bought it.

From our perspective it feels good that we don’t need to compete on price and can price our product at the level we matches its value. Not everybody has that luxury, but the more apps thrown out for the price of candy, the harder it gets to make good software. Therefore:

Let’s kill this meme that software priced lower than a large pizza is somehow “expensive,” and let’s not fall into the trap of comparing third-party apps to Apple apps based on price.”

A nice side effect: Pricing iA Writer higher than the average makes it possible for our competitors to go up with their price. And, believe it or not, we want healthy competitors that fight on a higher level.

2.2 Production Cost

We figured that from the 80,000 people that bought and loved iA Writer for iPad, we can get at least 10,000 in the first three months to cover the initial development costs. Our goal is not to get rich, buy a yacht, sail to Fiji and drink cocktails at the beach. (Well maybe it is;).

In the mean time there is nothing more exciting we can buy for ourselves than investing in better work conditions, designing better products, improving the quality of our work. All of our work.

2.3 Know How Benefit

iA Writer for iPad has given us highly valuable insights we can use to improve our client services (only a few other agencies have direct experience designing, making and selling successful iPad apps). Switching perspective and becoming our own client made us understand a client’s perspective much better and this directly improved our service. In return the client business has helped us understanding how to create successful products.

Within our company, iA Writer is an independent entity. To secure it, we first need to guarantee that the development costs are covered in a short time span, so we can move forward with the project. Otherwise, we will shut it down. (We have no investors, and I’d like to keep it that way.)

Now, again, this is just the business side, and, again, as far as customer perception goes, this is still irrelevant for the product price. But it is our perspective and it is important as an economic base for the existence.

2.4 The Right Price

As mentioned above, from a customer perspective the relativity of price and the perceived value are intertwined. If we sell iA Writer for $10 we might sell double the amount (or even more), but the perceived value goes down.

Now who cares, as long as we make more money with it, right? Wrong! If you sell a product at a low price, you’ll have to deal with more support questions and not only are you less able to provide answers for products that cost –.99 (you need to stay economically viable or go bankrupt), customers will also see you as a desperate little shop and not as a serious software provider—which doesn’t make the discussion easier.

One thing I learned with the dynamic pricing experiment we did a couple of years ago is to be patient. If the price varies a lot and people are aware of price changes, then they will jump on it when it’s cheap and wait when it’s expensive. If you keep your price at a spot where it is affordable and fair (in relation to other comparable products) they will eventually buy it at a higher price. The main lesson from being in business for five years is: the right price for a product is the highest price you can ask for, but with one condition: that your customers remain happy after they buy it.

2.5 Why was Writer for iPad so cheap? iTunes vs App Store

One problem with the different App Stores is that the rules change depending on the platform.

1. iPad: The best chance to get an iPad user to download your app is when he finds you on his iPad, that is: through iTunes. And the only way to be found in iTunes is to be featured in the top ten. And there are only two ways to stay in the top ten: by cheating (which is nasty and stupidly dangerous) or going down with the price. It’s that simple.

2. OSX: The chance that someone reads about your app when he’s on his desktop is statistically higher than being found with an iPad. With a desktop app there is some probability that you can lead people directly from the Website to the App Store. But beware, there is still the web to App Store gap. Having a strong presence in the store is not completely irrelevant.

If we could, we would price iA Writer for iPad closer to iA Writer for Mac. But alas, we need to be realistic and realism has forced our price down to the minimum –.99 cents for quite some time. Here is why:

1. Desktops are work devices, iPads are leisure devices. Even though iA Writer for iPad is a professional’s tool, it is sold in an amateur environment at amateur prices.
2. The highly competitive iTunes store (prices are generally lower on iPad, and even lower on iPhone) sets the tone.
3. The impossibility to translate desktop and mobile attention into iPad sales forces you to compete on iTunes.

Having both iPad and OSX has allowed us to go up with the price because now there is traffic and sales synergy between the two. If you compare units sold to revenue you will see that now we make more revenue with less apps, which we couldn’t do before:

Once we have an iPhone app in the market, we’ll be able to close the circle (at least for Mac users), and the price of the iPad might go up further. In any case, to really close the circle, we’ll have to release Writer for PC! But let’s first see how things develop on the Mac.

3. Test Version?

One reason why we went for the App Store is that Apple will handle all the transactions, updates, and be a neutral middleman in case of a refund. With the expected sales we simply couldn’t manage everything through an open source e-commerce system.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t offer test versions. This has, so far, been our greatest challenge. Many people claimed that iA Writer is too expensive without trying it. All software that relies on as much interaction as a text editor cannot be judged without using it.

I was irritated when I read the first blog post of someone “evaluating” iA Writer at length and deciding it to be overpriced—without actually buying (and that is: using) it. To judge a bicycle you need to ride it! I now think that’s actually quite a funny post, since many critical of its price have overcome their initial resistance and decided to try it, and after trying it they regularly admit that “it’s worth every penny.” Of course not everybody will be a fan. (But that’s understood.)

Now, as an old UXer and blogger, I know that if there is any form of user anger (there is a difference between users and customers: clients pay, users use), there is often a good chance for improvement, no matter how irritating the complaint might seem to be at first.

I know that what is missing is a test version. Since so many people converted from hater to lover, confirming our own experience using the program, I’d really like to offer a test version. Or, at least to give a test version a chance. But:

1. iA Writer will only work if it is fully functional (functionally limited test versions are a no go)
2. We use a licensed font
3. Our test version needs to be of the same quality as our software
4. iA Writer has a small initial learning curve: If you buy the program you’ll get over that in 30 seconds because you want to. If you just play with it, you might drop it 10 seconds too soon.

Since this is the first desktop app we produce in house I will be very careful about how we approach this. I know that there are frameworks that can be used for this purpose, but I want to test them thoroughly before throwing a test version on the market. In my experience, most test versions make me feel bad. Here are some of my (selfish stupid) feelings when testing trial software (usually cheap rationalizations for not buying):

1. “It’s very cool but I have it already, why do I need to buy it?”
2. “I need this, they force me to buy it! I’m being held hostage!” (Adobe Syndrome)
3. “How dare they just turning the key on the software that runs on my computer?”
4. “What only 4 days left? Oh you cheap bastards!” (!)
5. “Yeah, I got enough software on my computer. Now that I have it I don’t need to try it.”
6. “Ah, now I need to learn this interface. Dude! Ah next time…”
7. “Aren’t these free trial guys kind of desperate? I don’t support desperate people.”
   etc. etc.

We want to release a test version where people are looking forward to buying it because they get something more without being limited in testing it. But how would such a trial work? We want to excel in the concept of a test version as we try to be a step ahead in creating every other aspect of our product. Right now we don’t need to have a test version. But we want one because we know that many more will learn to love iA Writer once they try it. It’ll be only a matter of time until we figure out how to do this properly.

4. Next Updates

We just upgraded to 1.0.1 addressing the main bugs and uncool 1.0 limitations. iA Writer now has:

• Auto markdown shortcuts for CMD+B and CMD+I
• HTML export
• Word & character counts plus reading time in fullscreen
• Open and save using different file formats (.mkd, .text, etc.)
• Bug fixes for full screen, the title bar, printing, a.o.

There are still a couple of issues that we couldn’t address in the 2 week time span, but more updates will come soon. Future versions will include text zoom +/-, more languages, QuickCursor compatibility, better file handling, curly quotes, remembered spelling settings and window size and some very cool stuff that I don’t want to talk about just yet.

That is all for today. Don’t be shy to drop us a line on Twitter. We read everything and answer 99% of the reactions. And, yes, this article was written with Writer for Mac 1.0.1.

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You can get iA Writer for Mac at the App store. (10% off during the first few days!)

NOTE: Currently ONLY LATIN ALPHABETICAL LANGUAGES AND RUSSIAN are supported (NO Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Hebrew, Arabian…).

1. Character: No Preferences

One of our goals was to create a writing app without settings. When opening Writer, all you can do is write. The only option you have is full screen and FocusMode.

2. Signal vs Noise: Focus Mode (patent pending)

In focus Mode you write one sentence at a time. Why? It’s a common pattern, that, instead of following the voice and fleshing out the text in one go, people start editing before the text is done.

We’re more easily distracted by signals similar to those we produce (text), than by signals that are different (the browser icon).

How to Use It: Writing one sentence at a time goes hand in hand with this rule of thumb for good writing: One thought per sentence. You might not like it because it’s not your thing. Fair enough. But if you ever get caught in one of those moments, where the big white empty window scares you or when you get stuck in the middle of a text: try Focus Mode.

3. Speed: No Mouse

Auto Markdown will help you to format texts without letting off your keyboard. It’s easy. You can learn it in 30 seconds. Auto Markdown automatically formats the Markdown language. The advantage is that you don’t need to use your mouse to create semantic structure.

To increase the pleasure of writing is exactly what we intended when creating Writer. A better tool doesn’t make a better craftsman, but a good tool makes working a pleasure.

You can get iA Writer for Mac at the App store. (10% off during the first few days!)

I can’t see pay walls working out either. But we need to do something before we lose all of our current subscribers. Sure. It’s a tough business environment, but… But the flight industry is a tough environment too, and they found ways. So tell me: Why do people fly Business Class? In the end, an airplane brings me to the same place regardless of whether I fly Economy or Business Class and the massive price-increase I pay doesn’t compare the difference in value.

He asked whether I knew of a way to apply this logic to online news. What would a Business Class news site look like?

People pay for Business Class because they don’t want to be tortured in Economy. They get faster lanes at the terror check. They get an extra glass of champagne. The stewards are more attentive. They get off the plane more quickly. They get the feeling of a higher social status.

And he added that he wished that there was a way to lead each reader through the business class to Economy again and again to show him what he misses.

Limiting Information is not Economic

Say what you want, but he has one point for sure there. Reading news online feels like flying Economy. Loud distracting banners, cheap stock picture material, sloppy typography, a lot of useless comment noise, machine generated reading tips, no human service, and a claustrophobic information design make the reading experience a torture.

If you’ve been designing online newspapers as well, of course, you know that designers cannot solve this problem by themselves. Newspapers need to make money. And most newspapers look the way they look because the design briefings are the way they are. The following comparison demonstrates how much space and attention that marketing strategy needs to pay for the product, and how small the space is for actual content:

Now with all this noise, online news still doesn’t make enough money it seems. Some newspapers try to tackle the financial problem by erecting pay walls. “You want information? You pay!” But, as many have noted before, that’s a tough sell in a medium where information exists in overflow. The strategic problems with pay walls have been discussed back and forth:

1. There is no information shortage online—if I can’t read this article, I’ll read another.
2. Pay walls weaken the main attractor (content) of your site and complicates the user experience (login on different platforms). Some leave social media back doors for pro users, but that’s not a good long term strategy either, as more and more people are using social media to find content.
3. Often pay walled news sites feature the same amount of marketing noise as free sites. Paying customers of course are more attractive clientele, but… Paying for news and then dealing with a silly blinking bonanza while reading doesn’t seem like a fair deal.

To be clear: content pay walls are not what we are suggesting. Remember, whether you fly Economy or Business: the result is the same (you travel from a to b), and only the experience differs. And likewise Business Class and Economy class seats on news sites should deliver the same content.

The idea of creating a business class for online news where is not about buying information, but buying better experience, it’s about service and customer experience. That’s right: Customer (paying), not user (free).

Same Information, Different Experience

The idea of creating a business around the terrible online news experience is not that extravagant: Instapaper, Readability, FlipBoard & Co. are already profiting from the terrible reading experience of current news sites. (Actually, Jay Rosen has suggested just that: That publishing houses should compete FlipBoard [and with news.me the NYT is just doing that].) All these reading interfaces have one thing in common:

1. Design-focus on content
2. No blinking obnoxious advertisement and space filling noise
3. Personal relevance

…and they have the advantage of collecting news from different sources. What they don’t have, but publishing houses could provide:

1. High end picture material (often too expensive for a broad audience)
2. The immensely powerful brand and social network of news sites
3. Human service through qualified news professionals (for premium accounts only)

Now, wouldn’t it be at least worth a try to add a business class version to your site instead of leaving that business to the booming reader industry?

Sounds Good but How Does it Look?

How would a business class version of a news site look in detail? We are currently working on a behind the scenes consulting project dealing with that problem, and, as far as we can see, it’s not as impossible as one might think. For obvious reasons, we can’t show you the actual designs, but to give you an obvious example of just one aspect. Here is what happens to the New York Times if you get rid of the noise:

Which one would you rather read? What if you could get the loud one for free and pay for the nice one? Would you be tempted? And would you be tempted to use the same interface for other news as well?

No, you don’t need to make the free one ugly on purpose (apparently, they purposely torture us in Economy class). The traditional CPV/ad model design requirements will do the job for you.

It is understood that it’s difficult to make a business class version for the New York Post; you need a brand that fulfills the promise of Business Class. The Business Class idea would only work for titles like The New Yorker, Die Zeit, Il Sole 24 Ore, Le Monde (Le Monde actually has a similar concept in place but there the upsell is tied to more information, not better experience–which, again, is not what we’re suggesting).

How Much?

So here is our question for you: as a regular reader of Le Monde, NYT, or Die Zeit, how much would you be ready to pay for a Business Class version of your news site? I’m guessing that it should be a yearly fee. It doesn’t hurt to pay 99.- once a year, but it hurts to pay 10.– per month. Keep in mind that the above design is just a quick mockup and that the benefits go beyond a better design.

So. How much? 0.–, 5.–, 9.–, 49.–, 99.–, 299.– per year? What if in plus you could read other news sources through the same interface as well? We’d be happy if you could send us a tweet with the price you’d be ready to pay.

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Blog post composed with Writer for iPad

REACTIONS

The server is being hammered. The reactions on Twitter are intense and surprisingly positive. So far, it seems like the average user is willing to pay is $99.- to become a client. Several tech sites have reacted:

GigaOm

There’s no question that Reichenstein is onto something with this approach. Many newspaper pages and websites look hideous…

Daring Fireball

I love this idea from Oliver Reichenstein: a premium “business class” level for news websites. Stop trying to figure out ways to block the flow of information with paywalls. Allow everyone the same access to the content — in the way that every passenger gets transported from A to B on an airplane — but allow people to pay for a superior experience.

News.YCombinator

Perhaps as well as the layout, the “business class” service could also include better (and more immediate) forms of discoverability and curation to help with the above, or even the ablity to create filters (so I could block out all political or environmental stories, say). [by user petercooper]

Edouard Andrieu, Product Development Manager at LeMonde interactif

Internally, since its introduction in 2003 we have always talked about our Edition Abonné as our “classe affaire.” And indeed it is more about a better experience and better services than content. Our subscribers get an almost adfree website and get in the “club” which allows them to comment, to run a blog on our website, to be greeted with a personalized summary of the news if they haven’t reached the site for more than 3 days… etc…”

Critique

Some(including GigaOm) have noted that the news business is not like the airline business, meaning: They can force us into Economy, because we have no choice. The argument was not that the news business is like the airline business. Of course not. The argument is precisely that news should learn to upsell their readers to a better experience, not to more or better information.

It Already Exists!

Twitter user @mrjohnsly has noted that Ars Technica already has a similar model in place. And indeed they do. One particularly nifty feature of their model is that they offer full RSS feeds for paid subscribers. I’d be cool to know how well it is working for them.

Reader or not Reader

As briefly mentioned in the article, the offer would be even more attractive, if the Business Class environment allowed the use to not only find articles from other publications but also read articles from other publications. Some say that this is strategically impossible (even though FlipBoard proves that with enough negotiation skills it is possible), others suggest that this could be a model for a strategic cooperation among different publishing houses.

I wont elaborate on that matter at this point (there is more to say about that than fits within an H3 title), but one thing is pretty clear: The success such a reader would be much more likely if it is built platform independent.

As far as I can see some claim that the next generation of safe nuclear power plants will solve all problems; other people believe that only clean energy can save us from doom. Both parties operate with somewhat ironic notions (clean energy, safe nuclear power). And ironically, everybody agrees that humanity’s problems are due to bad technology that should be replaced with good technology. That in particular I find curious because I don’t think that nuclear power plants were bad technology. As far as I know the technology as such was quite impressive. I still find it stunning how much raw power these nuclear power plants are able to produce with such a tiny amount of fuel. But as I said, I can’t really judge that. As a Web designer, all I can say is for sure that:

1. All the power plants I’ve seen so far look quite ugly.
2. In my world engineering is a matter of compromise, not perfection.
3. It’s usually not bad technology but bad practice that causes trouble.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

The Web is based on pretty good technology. Even though it’s considerably younger, I’d say that it’s probably as advanced, as secure and as understood as nuclear technology. Maybe it’s even a tick ahead. After all, Billions of man hours of development and testing went into it.

I’m not saying that the Web is an alternative to nuclear energy. I’m not that confused. What I’m saying is: The infrastructure and the top layer of the Web is so solid, that whenever things go wrong on the Web (which of course happens quite often), it’s usually too much ambition and a lack of thought or experience in the way technology is used that causes problems. And good technology is technology that doesn’t rely on perfection.

The Bad

Of course, I am not saying either that there is no “bad technology.” There is bad technology; bad technology is technology not fit for its purpose, technology that lacks thought and consideration.

The lack of thought is a problem as old as humanity. Thinking hurts. And as with every form of pain, it’s a great business. The whole design business (putting thought into things) only exists because there is a lack of thought in the way things are constructed. As you might guess, Web design is not an easy business, since most of our work is thinking. And that hurts.

The Ugly

Of course, there is an easy way to make money from that same lack of thought. In our business (use your buzzword radar to find them) as much as in other businesses. Throughout human history con men of all shades have used the lack of thought shamelessly in their favor. You can be sure that whoever promises cheap solutions (for example: social media marketing) to complicated problems (for example: the Internet) is trying to profit from your physical or mental laziness.

Politicians and corporations are particularly good at this form of charlatanry. In Switzerland for instance, the populist party now blames foreigners for the need of power plants. “If we didn’t have foreigners, we wouldn’t need nuclear power plants” is their new slogan. That’s not just bad thought, it’s evil: Blaming foreigners for the nuclear energy is as honest an argument as blaming blond people for power plants. But I am digressing.

The Use of Thought

Thinking is hard work. Thinking clearly and consistently for hours and hours is something that only a few trained people can do. As the Greeks have proven at length, thinking for hours and hours over dozens of years can lead to incredible results.

Sure. You can’t move mountains or even cut a tree by just thinking. So what’s the use of thinking if it doesn’t change anything? — In short: Thinking helps the economy of action. If you want to cut a mountain of wood, you’d better take the time to think and sharpen your axe before hacking away. I am convinced that if we’d all think with concentration for five minutes every day our lives would be much easier. Unfortunately we rather believe that we have no time to think than taking the time for it.

Applied Science and Truth

In the eyes of the Ancient Greeks, applied science (speculate, test and see) would have been regarded as pure barbarism. In Greek eyes, only idiots test their thoughts in the world. Sophisticated people test their thoughts with other people.

To the Greek mind there is truth and truth is apparent, it doesn’t need to be forced out of a foxhole with glowing irons. Truth is something that is uncovered, it’s obvious, naked. If it’s not naked, it’s not the truth. Truth doesn’t need to be hunted down. It reveals itself. It’s not always nice to you but it’s clear. I don’t know if that concept of truth still makes sense today, but it’s certainly still a beautiful concept. (The skeptic position that there is no truth but only probability and everything is relative is more popular, and many believe that this position is extraordinarily wise, forgetting that where there is no truth and everything is relative, wisdom has very bad cards).

Science and Wisdom

As unpopular as the notion of truth is, in our time we can hardly afford aesthetic truth concepts. We need to test the results of our science because one of our main goals in developing science is to use it to build more technology. We don’t want to know in order to know, we want to know in order to use.

It’s hard to digest, but the goal of classic philosophy was not applicable knowledge or financial profit, it was done for the sake of pure reason, or, to put it in sweeter terms: out of love of wisdom. That is a massive difference. Not that the classic philosophers were completely against the use of knowledge; that’s impossible; but the practical usefulness of knowledge was not the primary goal of research. It was the desire to become wiser.

Wisdom is something we don’t seem to believe in anymore. How do we know if it even exists? It’s neither measurable, nor weighable, nor countable.

Wisdom and Achievements

You can frown upon the unpractical ways of the Greeks — “why think when you can test and know right away?” — their desire for such unmeasurable, unweighable, and uncountable baloney as “wisdom,” but the very unpractical philosophical method discovered and defined logic, democracy, art, philosophy, literature, and any form of natural science (including, among others, the theory of atoms).

The Greeks out-innovated us without A/B-testing, but mainly by thinking. And they thought all that in a historically speaking very short time span with very few people.

Technology and Hubris

Techne, Technique and Technology

Technology is a Greek word. Techne meant the way to do things (we now use the word technique for that). Technology is not the way but the means with which we do things. It’s more of a pragmatic, neutral notion than technique. We put a lot of thought into technology so we need less thought, effort and technique to achieve our goals.

Our civilization prides itself of its technological achievements. We are proud to achieve more with less thought, effort, and technique. We are so proud of our machines that only few people realize that other civilizations had invented them way before our civilization had even formed. Here the thing: The old Greeks for instance already had steam engines. However, they were not used for practical purposes.

Why didn’t they build railways, cars, and rockets? They didn’t dare. Using automats for pragmatic tasks seemed just too much, over the top, inhuman. What held them back? Being as smart and inventive as they were, they definitely could have come up with a concept as obvious as wheels on rails. It was not the lack of steel or the missing pistons but the fear of hubris that prevented them to use the steam engine for more practical tasks. It was the fear of hubris.

Hubris? WTF?

While we all still have a basic understanding of what defines “hubris,” the fear of giving into hubris is not one of our first concerns anymore. In contrary. We now call the cars that are supposed to save the planet: Hybrid cars. If you look at what hubris (or hybris) originally meant, that’s quite ironic:

Greek for “insolence,” excessive pride that constitutes the protagonist’s tragic flaw and leads to a downfall.

Now, whether you believe in the Greek Gods or not, avoiding hubris still is a pretty reasonable approach. You don’t need to believe in Divine Intervention to understand why excessive pride is dangerous. Pride is the blindness that comes with power. And power and pride are as dramatic a duo as nitro and glycerin:

Hubris often indicates a loss of touch with reality and overestimating one’s own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power.

Power and Blindness

The reason why we are so proud of the machines is the power they give us. Sure. It was not easy to achieve all this power. It took us a couple of hundred years to develop those Aeolipiles into piston driven steam engines, coal engines, fuel engines, jet engines and atomic power plants. And they really are massively powerful. And the massive power of our technology is why we are so incredibly proud and incredibly blind today. For a half a century we are actually able to completely eradicate ourselves and our living condition. We are way more powerful than any other civilization before us. What we sacrificed is what we now need most: wisdom.

“We need wisdom the most when we believe in it the least.” (Hans Jonas)

The method that made us build, operate and manage our awesome power goes back that very same barbaric thinking that Greeks would have frowned upon: Try and see. Which brings me back to my profession (which involves a lot of hybrid try and see).

A Designer’s Perspective

Forget that Old Shit

You may still feel completely comfortable and laugh about the Old Greeks and their superstitious fear of hubris and their preference for the obvious over the experiment in researching the truth. You may still believe that the next generation atomic power plants are completely safe. And maybe you are right.

What do I know? I am just a Web designer. Maybe really knowledgeable people do honestly think that next generation power plants cannot break. Maybe there is no such thing as hubris.

Engineering and Perfection

However I look at it, from where I come from (web- and application design) engineering is not a matter of perfection. It’s a matter of compromise. For websites and applications it just doesn’t make sense to assume that they never break. In my world there is no absolute predictability; in my world security is not just a technological problem. In my world, the weak spot of the technology I deal with is us: the humans. The humans that build, operate and manage technology.

I can’t say for sure whether or not perfect machines are possible, but I know for sure that there are no perfect humans to build them, manage them, and use them. Unless human nature becomes divine through divine intervention, any installations we build, manage and operate cannot be fully trusted. I might be wrong, but it seems to me that any technology that threatens the existence of humanity (or a substantial part of it) should not be built, managed or operated by humans.

Perfect People

And it also seems to me that giving technology in the hands of people that think they know everything, people that don’t know that they don’t know is where things started to get really dangerous.

Whether you look at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima, the operators all knew a lot about nuclear science, but they just didn’t feel the hubris that made them do what they did.

Conclusion

Experts

If you, just like me, still want to replace bad technology with better technology (to my ignorant hybrid mind, clean energy still sounds like a pretty sweet thing, after all), that’s completely cool. But, whatever we do next: Let us not just ask the experts. It’s not expertise that was missing, what was missing was reason, modesty, wisdom:

When the Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court handed down a ruling in January 2003 nullifying permission that had previously been given for the construction of the prototype Monju fast breeder reactor (FBR), electrical power companies and researchers involved in the power industry were up in arms. At a debate about the court ruling, a university professor who was a proponent of nuclear energy employed his knowledge of specialized terminology to talk down an opposition-party Diet member. Later on, I witnessed the professor and some cronies smirk in the corner of the room as they muttered, “Take that, you amateurs.”

Many of them might be perfectly reasonable and honest, some might even be wise, but it can’t hurt to ask many different reasonable people from many different disciplines.

So, dear experts, you might disagree with my ignorant text, but don’t ever tell us again, that we don’t understand enough about nuclear energy to form a relevant opinion. Don’t tell anyone they cannot have a relevant opinion on nuclear energy on the base they will never understand the ultimate scientific particularities of it like you do.

Citizens

And, to you, dear citizen, if you have doubts about your own knowledge: Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have the brain or time or will to learn and think and understand whatever the problem is. That’s what the political and corporate charlatans want you to believe: They want you to be as ignorant as possible. So they can continue to insult our intelligence by claiming that only they can understand what they understand and treat us like fools promising that nuclear energy will save humanity, free of charge. That’s too good to be true. It is your civil duty to know what is what.

In reality, most people will understand enough about nuclear energy if they spend 15 Minutes on Wikipedia. Let anyone who is reasonable enough to care about the problem have a voice in this, whether they’re shoe makers, nurses, gymnastic teachers, grandmothers or hairdressers. There is not just a scientific, political and managerial perspective on nuclear energy. There are many different very reasonable perspectives, and they all count–as long as they are honest and thought through.

Maybe the machines we need are not those that help us lifting heavier weights than our arms can carry, running faster than our legs can move, seeing further than our eyes can see, hearing more than our ears can hear — what we need is support to be able to think clearly. A thinking that allows us to rely on less technology. Wishful thinking? Pretty words? Lame dreaming? Just look at the insane amount of energy all these Japanese electric air conditioners pump into the atmosphere because of bad insulation…

I’m curious to hear what you think.

Music: Autogenics I, by The Books Director: Pedro Cascao

1. Renaming Documents

Q: How do I rename a file?
A: Tap on the title bar.

Q: When I put a “/” or a “\”, it changes to a “-”, why?
A: We set the program to automatically change the “/” to a “-” to prevent compatibility issues. Same thing happens to ¥, €, £.

2. Saving Documents

Q: Are the files being saved to my iPad?
A: Yes.

Q: Where is the save button?
A: The file is saved automatically (autosaved) every two seconds.

Q: Do I need Dropbox to save my document ?
A: No.

Q: Do I need to be online in order to save my document?
A: No.

Q: I heard that people sometimes lost their data?
A: In the previous version there was a bug that didn’t save files including a “/” in the filename. We fixed this bug in the new version and also prevent this problem by automatically replacing a “/” with a savable “-”.

3. Deleting Documents

Q: How do I delete a file?
A: Swipe on the document name in the document list.

Q: I have deleted my file on Dropbox but it still appears.
A: Delete the file on iPad first.

Q: I have deleted my file on iPad but it still appears on Dropbox.
A: Push the Sync button in order to syncronise the files between your Dropbox and your iPad.

4. Folders

Q: Can I order my documents in Writer?
A: No.

Q: Can I create folders in Writer?
A: No.

5. Working with iTunes

Q: Can I sync documents using iTunes?
A: Yes.

Q: How can I save my file in my computer?
A: Use the iTunes sync feature, then: – Connect your iPad to your computer. – Launch iTunes. – Select your iPad. – Go to the apps tab. – Scroll down and you will see that you can retrieve your files from iPad to your computer.

Q: I started writing a file on my computer, how do I put it on my iPad?
A: Use the iTunes sync feature, then: – Connect your iPad to your computer. – Launch iTunes. – Select your iPad. – Go to the apps tab. – Scroll down and you will be able to put your files from your PC to your iPad. – Sync.

6. Working with Dropbox

Q: I don’t have an account on Dropbox, how can use it?
A: Tap on the folder icon (top left), then: – Tap on the link to Dropbox. – Hide the iPad keyboard. – Tap on the “New to DropBox?” – Follow the instruction on the screen and you’re done .

Q: How can I import files that I have created on my computer into Writer?
A: Save your file as a plain text (.txt) file, then: – Make sure the encoding (the file format) is “UTF-16″ or “UTF-8″ – Put the saved file in the “Writer” folder in your Dropbox – Within Writer, tap on the sync button. – You should see your file now from Writer

Q: I screwed my great manuscript and can’t undo it, how can you help me? / How can I retrieve a draft of the same file saved a long time ago?
A: Use Dropbox’ version control feature.

Q: I linked the software to Dropbox but my file is not saved.
A: Tap the sync button in the file menu. Don’t change the folder name/place in your Dropbox.

Q: I can’t find my documents on Dropbox…
A: You need to tap the sync button (the arrow in the file menu).

Q: Is there an auto-sync function?
A: Not yet, (we are working on it).

Q: If I don’t tap the sync button, are my file saved?
A: Yes, but only on your iPad.

Q: If I’m offline but linked to my Dropbox, is my work saved?
A: Yes.

Q: Can I change the name or place of the folder “Writer” in my Dropbox?
A: No.

Q: I have way too many documents, isn’t there a way to manage them?
A: Use the “open with” feature of Dropbox App for iPad. (Note that the selected file would be copied to Writer’s own folder, so you’ll have to put it back by yourself in your custom folder.)

7. Opening a document made with another program

Q: When I create a file on[abc word processor]with the [.xyz] extension, it doesn’t show up in Writer, why? For iWork users : – Open Text-Edit – Copy paste your text from pages to Text-Edit – From Text-Edit click on save as – In the Plain Text Encoding drop down menu, choose Unicode (utf-16) For Word users: – Click on the File > choose “Save As” in the menu. – The “Save As” dialog box pops up. – Enter your filename. – Select the “Plain Text (*.txt)” option in the “Save as Type” field. – Click the Save button. – The File Conversion dialog box pops up. – Click the “Other encoding” radio button and select the “Big-Endian” option. – Click the OK button. – Your file is saved now in the right format.

Q: My document is blank on Writer, why ?
A: You have to make sure that the encoding is “UTF-16″ when you save your file in .txt. For Word users: – Click on the File > choose “Save As” in the menu. – The “Save As” dialog box pops up. – Enter your filename. – Select the “Plain Text (*.txt)” option in the “Save as Type” field. – Click the Save button. The File Conversion dialog box pops up. – Click the “Other encoding” radio button and select the “Big-Endian” option. – Click the OK button. Your file is saved now in the right format.

Q: On Windows, when I open the file with notepad, paragraphs disappear…
A: You have to open it with WordPad or any editor that supports UTF-16 encoding.

Q: Are your files convertible into Word formats on a PC or on a Mac?
A: Yes, the files are plain text.

8. Opening a Writer document on the computer

Q: Why can’t I sync my file with Windows?
A: Windows doesn’t support filenames which contain characters such as < > : ” / \ | ? *

Q: What form of document is created with Writer?
A: Writer creates .txt files in UTF-16. These files don’t open properly in Notepad on Windows.

9. Email

Q: How do I insert text written with Writer in the mail body (not as an attached file)?
A: Tap the export button, then: – Tap copy. – Tap export to E-Mail. – Tap paste.

Q: I enabled Dropbox on Writer but can’t send E-Mails, why?
A: Dropbox and E-Mail are unrelated. Please check your Mail Settings (in the iPad’s Settings).

10. Keyboard

Q: Are right to left languages (such as Hebrew) supported?
A: Yes.

Q: Does Writer support the bluetooth keyboard?
A: Yes.

Q: Can you change the chars within the on-screen standard keyboard?
A: No.

Q: Can I use Writer’s keyboard as a default keyboard for my iPad?
A: No.

Q: Is there a way to make accents or special characters easier to access than Apple’s default touch-screen keyboard?
A: No.

Q: Does Writer support my language?
A: Writer works with any language that works on the iPad.

Q: What are the key bindings for the special Writer function keys like “| word” and “word |”
A: Press alt + left for “| word” and alt + right for “word |”.

Q: I’m using a BlueTooth Keyboard, how can I display the iPad’s keyboard as well?
A: Press the “eject button” (top right)

Q: In Japanese, I can’t see word suggestions when typing with the bluetooth keyboard and Focus Mode enabled…
A: When you want to see a word suggestion, tap the right key on your bluetooth keyboard. You will access a bigger and better word suggestion dialogue from there.

11. Features

Q: Spell checker doesn’t work. Is it broken?
A: It works in normal mode, but it is disabled in Focus Mode.

Q: How do I undo/redo? (from version 1.2)
A: Use straight HORIZONTAL two finger swipe gestures. – Undo = Two finger swipe from right to left.
 – Redo = Two finger swipe from left to right.

Q: Can I disable the cursor time?
A: No.

12. Accessibility

Q: I’d like a black background for writing. How can I invert color?
A: For now, use iPad’s standard feature: – In your iPad Settings > General > Accessibility there is a cool option – Tap on Tripple-Click home, choose “Toggle White On Black” – Now the screen inverts its colors on tripple click the home button

Q: How do I make the font bigger?
A: You can’t set the font size in the application, but you can zoom into your work with iPad’s standard accessibility feature: – Go to “Settings”, tap on “General”. – Tap on “Accessibility”. – Now switch the “Zoom” option to “ON”. – If you want to have the font bigger, tap with three fingers to zoom in. – If you want to go back to the normal mode, tap again with three fingers to zoom out.

13. Miscellaneous

Q: What is the battery life impact of Writer?
A: It’s a very light weight app, thus it has low processor usage.

Q: Can I download Writer from the app store of my country?
A: You can download Writer from any app store in the world.

Q: Will you support other 2nd party services than Dropbox (such as iDisk, Mobile me, GDocs, WordPress, Evernote, TextExpander…)?
A: We will do our best to integrate with as many other services as possible.

You can get Writer at the App store. View in iTunes.

According to the top grossing stats Writer and WIRED generate a similar amount of revenue in the US app store. Which is around $1,200-2,000 or 300-500 downloads per day. It’s hard to say how that translates into global sales, but according to our own stats the US is by far the strongest revenue market (about 75% of Writer’s sales) and as such a good indicator.

I’m not sure if this is good news for Writer (given how much leverage and marketing fire power WIRED has through Adobe as a partner), or if it’s bad news for WIRED (imagine how much it costs to produce the app every month). But one thing is clear: The app store pay wall is not a great source of income for a publication of that dimension.

Where is The Money?

Now, what if, as some might argue, the real economical value of iPad apps comes from the ads you can plug into a news app? (Which is the classic anti-paywall position). Well, if so, why not publish the app for free, so you can reach much more readers and become a truly attractive ad platform?

Because the advertisers wouldn’t pay as much for ad placements in a free app? Really? They pay a truck load of money to reach 300-500 paying readers per day? But they won’t pay as much to reach an avalanche of non paying readers? Why is that? Because paying readers wouldn’t read a free magazine? Oh, you silly, silly advertisers! Wake up. 300-500 ad impressions per day isn’t worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Conclusion

Maybe I don’t have enough data points or maybe my math is flawed (I always sucked at math), but from what I can see:

1. WIRED doesn’t make substantial money with the app sales.
2. The only way to substantially monetize a news app is through advertisement.
3. Paid apps (with their low reach) are a horrible deal for advertisers.

Which brings us back to my favorite point: From a publishing, adverstising and reading perspective, the most efficient reading, publishing and ad platform is the web.

You can get Writer at the App store. View in iTunes.

Please tell us if our logic is flawed.

…we don’t need no awards, we need good awards.

Because…

When a client said make the logo bigger, a creative director could turn quietly to his or her wall of awards, and the client would back down.

1. Every time someone claims UX authority through an award, a kitty dies. Awards are not how we argue.
2. You are bigger than this. You don’t need medals to convince clients. Your word is the God dammed medal.
3. Awards are nice stickers on boxes in shops, and that’s cool, but that’s all. So, if we really need those stickers for our boxed products (posters, books, templates, iPad apps) they need to be given in a way that reflects the way we want this industry to work (hint: user feedback, analytics).

How we argue

Anyone that follows our business knows that there is no such thing as an agency, designer or site “of the year.” So many people in our field do amazing things every single day that putting anyone on top of all others for 12 months just doesn’t make sense. But mainly, the awards now happen every day. Getting 1,000 tweet thumbs up from real customers is much more efficient than any trophy. And the true value of digital products shows in analytics, not in carat.

Of course, people with a bigger presence have an unfair advantage there. Twitter doesn’t solve all problem, it amplifies it. So, let’s dig deeper…

Your word is the medal

What’s not so random in the institutionalized honor system is the authority that honors. In reality these awards are not about who got but who gave them. They are the ones that get the biggest honors. You don’t need them. You are already there. You or Tim O’Reilly or Jared Spool you guys don’t need any of this. Now, when you say that

we were nominated for them by the community. Accepting the nominations was like accepting a compliment—the gracious thing to do. Not that I’m apologizing.

Here is where it gets difficult

Here is where things get difficult for both of us: “the community” is not really changing the game. iA was nominated by the same community for “Mobile Site of the Year” and .Net encouraged us to promote the online voting (which I didn’t because I didn’t see the point). What a silly process I thought. If iA were nominated somewhere else I would have joined in—because I expected the sword of justice to put things in place in the end. The reason why I believed that was because I saw your name on the panel.

We all know that if you occupy the center of attention you have a higher chance to win that vote, no matter whether you push it, deserve it or not. Our stuff gets much more attention than other people’s stuff, not because it’s so much better, but because we get the attention. That’s how the game works. I guess that’s just part of the new attention capitalism or however you want to call it. I can’t blame anyone for that, I play the game. And I love it.

And while I think that iA does its best in terms of work, I’m pretty sure that we are not as good as some might believe just from the exposure we get. Being good at self promotion is and always was part of a designer’s job (after all our job is to communicate), but there is also the danger to lose perspective. That’s exactly what I dislike about the advertisement/branding industry.

How we want our industry to work

When judges win awards we look like the ADC club. And the good work gets hit by attention inflation. No matter whether it’s “common practice” or systemically unavoidable or labelled “not such a big problem”, judges must be impartial.

“Standards Champion for the third year in a row.”

You are the standards champion, Zeldman. Not just for three years in a row but for as long as I know the word. But if anyone gets the any award for the third time in a row he gets labeled and the seed of probable doubt starts to grow. The effect feels somewhat like this:

Is he really that much of a standards champion? Are there no other standard champions? What if there is a bigger standard champion? I don’t know who, but.. there must be a bigger standard champion!

Which is why I said:

Just so you know: I don’t think you don’t deserve awards, I think awards don’t deserve you.

I was just astonished to find you there. I’ve looked at the event out of the corner of my eye; pretty much the only thing I knew about the organisation was that you are one of the judges (I didn’t even realize that ALA co-organizedsponsored it). And then you win stuff.

The world is not black and white. What matters is in which direction we move within the shades of grey. And I felt that the old school ADC award system is the wrong direction for one of the main voices of open standards. But let’s get to the main question that I avoided so far:

Do we need “Good awards”?

What is a good award? Who hands it out? Who receives it? We know what bad awards look like. Bad awards are those received through influence, nepotism, money, manipulation, power. And good awards? When Paul McCartney gets knighted? Medals of war? Oscars? An invitation to the Académie Française? The Nobel Prize?

I’m not completely sure about this, but the only good awards that came to my mind were awards handed out by the silverbacks to the young bad asses—and the anti-awards, like the Golden Raspberry.

Now that would be something: If people that respect each other gave each other anti-awards if they mess up! We all do sooner or later and we all surely do praise each others often enough. Khoi said it before. What’s missing in our funny little circle of Web designer sausage prominence (if you allow me that Swiss expression) is not open mutual praise it’s open mutual critique. Which is sort of what I did here without planning to.

In short

An award system where judges win prizes disfunctional practice makes us look like the disfunctional ad industry. I think that in the age of Twitter we don’t need awards to create awareness. Instead of reconstructing a fame-based honor system focused on cementing the current order of things, we should encourage evolution.

Of course, we all know why news organizations focused on the app store instead of the browser version: Print publishers got excited about apps because they finally opened a door to charge for content. Experimenting with new technology and finding way to monetize content is without any doubt crucial for any news organization. Many news organizations have been successful selling their product in the app store. iA has designed two iPad news apps (currently in production) and we have even created our own writing app—and it sells like pancakes which is awesome.

But, however exciting the app store might be—there is no rational reason to neglect the most obvious iPad news platform: The website. The chance that you sell your app will only rise if your have a strong presence in the browser—given, that it’s worth the money. Developing an HTML based news app is not just cheaper and faster, it also gives you more editorial and technical control over your contents. More importantly, HTML-apps are in many ways more convenient for the user: They’re easy to use, they’re more medium appropriate and in that sense: more appealing and—they’re free. No long downloads, no “how do I get to…”, no weird crashes, no trouble to share, copy, paste, comment, tweet, link to. They just work.

Finding the right shape for news on iPad has not been an easy task, and while it is only the first version, we are delighted with the results. The quality of text and pictures delivered by ZEIT ONLINE is one of a kind. Without the editorial power of ZEIT ONLINE, our design would never look as it looks. Working with the tech savvy core team around Wolfgang Blau, Fabian Mohr and Nico Brünjes has, as always, been a great pleasure. And this also shows in the product.

I’m going to leave out the technical specifics of the design process and the insights we gained to offer ZEIT ONLINE the head start they deserve and give the word to Wolfgang Blau, editor in chief of ZEIT ONLINE:

Interview with Wolfgang Blau

If you connect the classic web with the iPad, you don’t need an iPad-app anymore, correct?

Wolfgang Blau: We didn’t connect the iPad with the ‚classic web’ as you call it, the iPad has always been connected with the open internet and comes pre-configured with the safari browser. The enormous opportunities of the iPad as a browsing or surfing device have been overlooked during the first months of – understandable – app euphoria. We simply think that there are several distinct user types for the iPad: There are users who strongly prefer apps and other users who primarily use the iPad as a surfing device and want apps only for tasks that can’t be done with the browser. We want to make attractive offers to both user types. And, of course, the for-pay digital edition of the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT will only be available inside our pay-app and within the paid-content section of our our website. Our pay-app also contains comfortable features such as download-to-go which you don’t find on our open ipad-optimized site.

But isn’t this decision a departure from the idea of selling paid apps?

Wolfgang Blau: Quite the contrary: Through our iPad-optimized site, we will be able to offer our pay-apps in a very targeted manner. Most iPad-Surfers already has an account for the app-store. This way, the larger user-base of our free, ipad-optimized site on one side and our pay-apps on the other side will strengthen each other. For instance, we now can seamlessly link from within our pay-apps on the iPad to free content on our site which is already optimized for the iPad. At the same time we reach a lot more iPad users through our free site, who we then can point towards our app-offerings.

What is your general stance towards paid content then?

ZEIT ONLINE is already generating significant revenue from editorial premium products and will launch additional paid products in the future. Yet, our sales team is also registering rapidly growing revenue from large scale display ads. From my perspective as an editor, the online ad market is still in its infancy and is just beginning to unfold its true potential. Part of this process is an increasing differentiation of the online advertising environment into sites that aim for sheer size and absolute numbers of users and other sites that fullfill an increasing demand for premium enviroments such as ZEIT ONLINE which aims for very qualified and affluent user-groups and is characterized by high editorial quality, a strict avoidance of celebrity and gossip topics and by a design that is optimized for each platform whether that is a mobile phone, a desktop PC or an iPad.

Questions by Dr. Frank Zimmer

Official Statement from ZEIT ONLINE

Last summer, when the first iPads arrived in our newsroom, we were delighted by how good ZEIT ONLINE looked on this new device. The iPad, at least we thought at that time, displays the aesthetic quality of ZEIT ONLINE as well as any large PC-monitor.

After a few hours of intense browsing, however, we realized that web sites that were designed for navigating with a mouse are not really useful for touchscreens and for finger navigation. Text links in small font-sizes, for instance, are simply not adequate for touchscreen devices. Over time we also noticed how we tried to navigate our fotographic slideshows with wiping gestures, which – obviously – our regular site was not made for.

We swiftly concluded: Let us search for ways to optimize ZEIT ONLINE for the iPad and ideally for as many other tablet-pcs as possible and let’s do it quickly.“

The first sketches of our editorial developer team led by Fabian Mohr made it even more obvious that tablet-optimized sites not only need much larger touch spaces around text links, but that the overall design asks for a strict reduction down to a site’s very essence for users to quickly find their way around.

ZEIT ONLINE currently exists as a site for desktop and laptop PCs, as a mobile site and within our for-pay app on the iPhone and the iPad. Our pay app also contains the full print-edition of the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT. A core editorial request in regards to our new iPad-site was that our newsdesk would not have to think of different sites, but could focus on one identical sequence and presentation of ZEIT ONLINE’s topic, no matter which device they appear on.

Oliver Reichenstein and his Japanese-Swiss Agency information Architects in Tokyo began developing touch-screen optimized designs of our most important templates, such as the homepage and our article-pages, as well as a global header and footer section. Simultaneously, our technical team at ZEIT ONLINE was searching for a way how to run the classic desktop site and the new table-site under the identical domain www.zeit.de.

Nico Brünjes, our frontend developer, eventually found a technically elegant solution via CSS-stylesheet and javascript and then wrote the complete code for it.

At ZEIT ONLINE, we cherish a culture of experimentation and permanent beta“. Obviously, our new iPad-site is only a first step. In future versions we will support additional devices as soon as they reach a significant market share in Germany, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and other Android tablets.

We very much look forward to your feedback on Twitter.

Blog post composed with Writer for iPad

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It has an introduction (P1-P12) about iA for the students that first met me—you can skip that. Since the voiceover is missing, some things will not be as clear as in the lecture. I hope that it’s still clear enough.

After twelve years of absence from Philosophy, Uni and teaching, it was great fun being back in front of the class. Might be something I do more regularly.

Written with Writer for iPad

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