Why media companies should be braver with apps

Just a few short months ago the arrival of the iPad was being hailed as the saviour of the newspaper and magazine business. After the initial enthusiasm the realisation that apps are not a simple quick fix for the media industries malaise has led to a rapid growth in cynicism and caution. It reminds of the early response of the magazine industry to the emergence of the web: “It’s interesting but there is no money in it – so we will wait and see.”

It is estimated that some 48 million iPads could be sold this year, but other tablets on Google Loading... companies google ’s open source Android platform will outsell the apple solution within two years (our report on mobile publishing has much, much more on this).

Meanwhile we have already reached the point where one per cent of the world’s web traffic is driven by iPads. That is a staggering rate of growth.

Looking at the traffic stats for our own site and the stats I see in the course of my consulting work, the rate of growth in traffic from tablets is exponential. It’s not huge (about three percent of TMB traffic) but it has doubled in three months.

The need to think and act fast

In a media world where one newspaper publisher can make a decision to close a title with 168 years of heritage and millions of weekly sales, with just a day or two of thinking time, how come we move so slowly when making strategic decisions that arise from technology change?

In the last few weeks I have been speaking with many facilitating technology providers, content management platforms, app developers, CRM companies and more. They have an interesting observation about the media sector which contrasts sharply with other industry groups – most notably retail. They say we make big decisions too slowly – that we are moving cautiously and slowly and with fear of failure.

Here’s what one supplier said:

“We get called into a meeting and it seems to go well with lots of enthusiasm. But then we hear nothing for three weeks. We try to follow-up but we don’t even get a reply.”

 

“Months later we get a call and are asked to attend another meeting and the same cycle begins all over again.”

The problem is that many media companies are struggling to make sense of the economics of apps. Those who have at face value been most successful, or at least most adventurous, are the companies prepared to invest without a certain promise of return.

But it seems to me that there are several ways to get off the fence on this issue:

– The cost of building an app using off-the-shelf technology is relatively modest. So taking a chance is not going to break the bank.

– Any magazine with an international circulation can improve speed of delivery to readers and reduce distribution costs by using an app.

– Any magazine with a paid subscription base of more than 2,000 copies can almost certainly fund an app experiment with a very modest increase in subs price.

– There are numerous revenue opportunities, including selling app takeovers to brands, sponsorship and building bespoke apps and content for advertisers.

What is clear is that a failure to experiment with apps now will likely leave many media companies substantially behind the early adopters. Now is the time to act.

Neil Thackray is co-founder of Briefing Media, the parent company of TheMediaBriefing.com.