Apple is tempting authors with an easy-to-publish book platform. But as an author I would be stupid to take their offer.

I have for the last couple of years worked on a book about Cambodia. As a former Asia correspondent for the largest Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten, I have had a particular interest in the Far East. Among all the Asia countries Cambodia has intrigued me the most, especially how extremely friendly people are despite the brutal and violent political history of the country.

I have almost finished a manuscript describing how the brutal political history of the South East Asia country has influenced the life of even young Khmers born after the Pol Pot year. Now I face the question of how I should publish the book after the last few pages have been written.

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As a paper book primarily?  I could. And that is also what I planned.  But the highly regulated – and very small – Norwegian book market  make my income on this option marginal. I may get some recognition, of course, but with such a niche topic as contemporary Cambodia there is no way I will make even close to my normal salary in royalties for selling the book.

Should I forget about being published in the print format – and instead focus only on the ebook market, then?  I may not get more income, but format and its possibilities are exciting and the book might end up getting a bigger audience. It sounds like a good idea, except that ebooks have not really taken off in the small Norwegian market, one reason being that the big publishing houses pretty much have cooperated in making sure ebooks have not been a big success so far.

Now Apple offers its iBooks Author App – promising that everyone can make amazing multi-touch ebooks for iPad.

It sounds exciting!  I would love to take my manuscript, mix it with some of my best photographs from Cambodia and design an amazing book, hopefully both giving a great reading and visual experience at the same time. And the iPad is a great platform to read books (except in daylight, that is).

But I will not do it.

Because there is a catch.

It is hidden in the terms of use:

 If your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or
service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

It stinks!

So Apple wants me to spend months writing a manuscript, taking photographs and putting it all into a coherent story. Then I will spend a few hours (remember it is SO EASY!), maybe days if I am really getting into it, creating a great ebook using their tool. In return they want more or less full ownership of my work!

I can accept that I will give Apple 30 % of my income selling the ebook through their iBooks app. Afterall I only get to keep about 15 % when I publish a paperbook through a Norwegian publishing house.

But give me even one reason why I should accept that Apple limits my chances of distributing my work on other platforms than the ones controlled by them?

For me it is the opposite way around: If I choose the ebook route I want my work to be published on all available platforms there is. There are three reasons for that:

• It maximizes my profit. People use different platforms and I want as wide distribution as possible.
• Many people today use several devices during the day to access the same content. That’s why I love the Kindle platform for books. Many times I have found myself starting reading the book on the Kindle ereader, then continuing on the Kindle app on iPad before I read on in a bar at night on my Android-powered smartphone. It all syncronizes perferctly across devices and platforms.
• I want to learn as much as possible about how people use my content. There is little learning in only publishing on one device

For more on the license agreement I recommend you to read Ed Bott in ZD Net:  Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement.  For a wider perspective I recommmend Thomas Baekdal: Lies, Damned Lies and Ebooks.

As I look at it Apple is basically providing me with two things:

• An easy-to-use production tool for iBook.
• A distribution platform for selling the book through iPad and iBook.

The production tool is supposedly free (provided that I have a Mac, which I do not have). But in fact they are charging me an extremely high price by trying to take full ownership of my work.  I don’t know of any other seller of a production tool using this business model.  Do you?

For the distribution platform I am asked to pay 30 % of the revenue.  This is a fairly common business model for selling goods and services.

So what do I do?

For sure: Although I would love to, I don’t dare to use the new Author App from Apple. I have spent so much time struggling over my manuscript – and I have still weeks to go. There is no way I will risk the right to do whatever I want with my own content just for the right to use a convenient – and I am sure also very elegant – production tool.

So I will look for other ways to make elegant ebooks. It may take me some more hours, and the end-result may not be as perfect. But I will be in control myself. And I will hopefully reach more readers, not only on Apple’s devices.

In the meantime I will not be surprised if Apple provides a “broader” and more author-friendly interpretation of the terms of use.

I think they have to. I am not the only author around.

What is your opinion?

GUEST BLOG POST: Developers from Poland create an easy Do-It-Yourself tool for publishers to prepare tablet apps on their own.

Rafal Oracz from Spoti.pl explains their HTML5 tool for publishers

By Marek Miller, guest blogger:  Marek Miller is the regional consultant of Innovation Media Consulting for Poland and Eastern Europe. You can read a number of his coverages of different INMA and WAN events on Forum4Editors.com. He also blogs in Polish on www.em-jak-media.blogspot.com.

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While the tablet market is still quite an unknown territory to many publishers, all they agree upon is the need of experimenting. And experimenting in this area is not easy. There are a number of questions still to be answered before newsmedia companies will actually be able to estimate real growth possibilities.

Those questions are, for example:
- how many tablets are really used in my country? (only estimates are possible)
- will Apple change its regulations again?
- should we focus on iPad only, and how will the market of other tablets develop?
- will people really enjoy one’s content on tablets?
- what kind of business model should be implemented and why the hell do we need to pay the share?

Waiting for these questions to be answered is suicidal. When you look only 12 months back, you will notice there is not a month to be wasted if you want to innovate and protect your place in the tablet market without making the same mistakes as the publishing industry did some years ago with the rise of the internet. And because tablets are here to stay, you need to experiment on as many levels as your budget allows.

Until recently there were basically two possibilities for publishers in the Polish market that wanted to make products for tablets. The first, as probably many publishers around the globe do, was to outsource this service, hire a professional consultant who would guide the editorial offices through the process of filling a prepared application with the content. This is the most expensive possibility when publishers develop a native app specifically designed for their own needs and with no similar apps in the market.

The second option is white label applications. There are companies around Poland offering the same kind of application for different publishers. They can be customized to (some) needs, but the core difference between those are usually colours, graphics, and maybe the order of the sections. Those applications look similar to one another, yet still are a bit expensive (somewhat mid-market price).

For about one month so far, a new tool has been available on the Polish market. The tool called Spoti Kreator uses HTML-5 technology, and makes applications available on diverse platforms: not only on iPad, but on all existing Android platforms as well.

Spoti is a simple do-it-yourself tool, where publishers can insert their content: text, images, videos and audio. They have about 30 different layouts of the application pages at their disposal. The entire code of the publication is open for the user, so when he is a developer with a basic HTML knowledge, he will be able to build his own layouts as well. Someexamples of how a page within the application can look like are listed on the picture below.

Spoti Kreator lets you choose many different layout templates for each page in the app

The process of creating the application is very easy and intuitive, and is done online. First you have to pick a template for your publication. Then you choose how your table of content should look like. Next comes the articles, which of course are linked with the table of content. Each article can be shown in one of 30 layouts. They can be either articles or galleries or simple pictures or videos or infographics. After choosing “publish” you will be able to enjoy your tablet application.

Spoti Kreator, just like all other tools, has its pros and cons. The great advantage is definitely its price. For now, creation of a single application costs about 125 Euros, but the developers of Spoti say they are considering an offer that would allow publishers to use their tool as much as they wish within a certain amount of time (weekly, monthly, we’ll see).

Due to the fact it is based on HTML-5 technology, the application is not distributed via AppStore or Android Market. Instead the final version of the application built in Spoti is given in the form of a link you can save on your tablet’s home screen.

Another advantage is the time needed for such work. In a 3 hour trial I managed to turn a 24 page publication (text and pictures) into the fully operational application. You can view it by opening the following link from your tablet: http://spoti.pl/e-dokument/5810/Raport (the publication is in Polish). It may not look astonishing, but given the fact it took me three hours only to prepare it makes me consider Spoti an interesting tool.

Apps built in Spoti Editor can be both sold or distributed for free, whereas in both situations the user can sell his own advertisements within the app.

Despite the fact that Spoti Editor is no longer in the development stage, it is still going to be improved. So far the applications work only when the device is online. At first this can be treated as a huge disadvantage, but being able to use different Wi-fi zones around the country or simply 3G connection, the user can actually be satisfied he does not have to wait for 200-300 MB to be downloaded.

Despite that fact, the developers of Spoti work on the possibility to allow users to download entire publication to their tablets. When they manage to do so, the publications will have to be distributed through AppStore or Android Market, what again has its pros and cons. Luckily, Spoti Editor’s users will have a choice whether they want the publication to be downloadable or to be accessed online only.

The idea of this post is not to promote Spoti Editor as the ideal tool for publishers. It is however a tool that allows publishers to experiment with applications, their content, learn about their readers and users, and to do this all without risking their entire budget.

Spoti Editor is so far available in only in Poland (one of the biggest media monthlies in Poland – “Press” has already chosen Spoti tool as their solution). Again, the developers are interested in expanding outside of Poland, so the english version of Spoti Editor can be expected soon.

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This is just one example of a company trying to build tools to help publishers use HTML5 to distribute their content. Do you know of other interesting examples? Let us know in the comments field.

Less than a year after iPad was launched, media products for the device flourish in the Scandinavian market. Here are six media approaches to the new platform.

Scandinavia is one of the most technologically advanced markets in the world. People are quick to adopt new devices and media companies love to be in the global forefront in offering superb solutions when new technologies emerge.

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Long before the tablet was officially launched in the Scandinavian market, the first local media apps were ready. By now, just four months after the introduction, most newspapers of any significance is on the iPad in some form or another.

INMA – International Newsmedia Marketing Association - recently gathered 55 media executives for a roundtable discussion in London about tablet subscriptions. The roundtable was inspired by Apple’s change in policy over subscriptions services and what media companies might be permitted to do in their apps.

I was invited to the roundtable to give a snapshot of how media companies have approached iPad in the Scandinavian market.

In my presentation I pointed out that there are basically six different approaches:

I would think these approaches are typical for many other markets as well. Here is an elaboration and a Scandinavian example for each approach.

1. E-paper apps

The most common approach, both in Scandinavia and other parts of the world, is to make a replica of the printed newspaper.

This is done with a number of different vendors, such as Solidam, Visiolink or Newspaper Direct. Typically you can flip through the newspapers and then zoom in on articles you find interesting. In some of the apps users are given the choice of reading the articles in text view.

It seems to be a widespread understanding in the media industry that this approach will not be sufficient in the long run. Still it is considered to be the smartest first move for many media companies. It provides a product readers are familiar with, and the investment for getting in to the market is relatively low.

2. Native apps with premium content

Some media companies conclude that e-paper apps are not sufficient even in the short run. Instead the media houses should try to use the iPad platform to its fullest potential. To do so, these media houses argue, one would need to develop a native app.

In Scandinavia the Norwegian news company VG is a prominent example of this line of thinking.

Another example is the widely discussed News+ platform of the Bonnier group. This native application has been used by both Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Industri and Sydvenskan.

Tor Jacobsen, who is head of mobile products at VG, says their native application now has been downloaded 54.000 times. About half of these people use the application during a week.

- The peak hours for using the application are from 6 to 11 PM during the week and from 8 AM to 1 PM during weekends, Jacobsen says.

Average session time is around 10-12 minutes, which is significantly longer than on other digital platforms.

- What is your main philosophy behind what you try to do on iPad?

- Our philosophy is to make a third editorial product specifically designed for the tablet platform. We still have a long way to go in order to make full use of the tablet, though. For instance photos and videos work very well in storytelling on iPad. We want to improve on being even more iPad relevant and in creating new user habits for consuming content on this platform.

Jacobsen says that VG defines this first iPad year very much as a time for learning. However, he believes that they will be able to charge users for content on this platform if it is done right.

3. Multi-purpose apps

There are different philosophies about what concepts actually work for iPad.

Some argue that apps should be specific and targeted specifically at a clearly defined purpose. Others claim that it would be better if the app includes a number of different needs in one.

In Norway one of the biggest media companies, A-pressen, has decided to build a socalled multi-purpose app. The pilot newspaper is Nordlys in the northern city of Tromsø. A-pressen plans to launch a similar app for a further 17 local newspapers in Norway.

The Nordlys app includes a number of different functionalities:

• E-paper, which is a replica of the printed paper
• Touch screen version of the latest stories from the web site
• Local TV
• Weather
• News overview: Aggregating stories from both local, national and international news stories

About 2000 people have downloaded the app – and one in four of these use it every day, says Anders Opdahl, chief editor at Nordlys.

- For us it is important to deliver on our promise to the readers through our 109 years history: Nordlys shall be useful! That’s why we have decided to build many more functionalities in to the app. We believe that if we can be useful and make people stay long in the app, they will also be willing to pay, says Opdahl.

He says user sessions are almost as long as for the printed paper.

- Let us not forget one thing: Many experts talk about the iPad as a sofa device, and says this should influence how we design our products. It may be so. Still, for us the killer functionality of the iPad is that it is connected to the web. And with that follows expectations from users who have been online for almost 20 years. You have to fullfill those expectations first before trying to impress in other areas. In our opinion many media companies don’t get this, Opdahl says.

4. Web content apps

Some news apps take the content from a web site and present it in a more touch-screen friendly way. One example in the Norwegian market is Nettavisen.no.

Nettavisen is an online newspaper, with no printed version. It has always been a free product.

The app presents stories from the web site. In between the stories on the front page ads are inserted.

Head of Nettavisen, Gunnar Stavrum, tells us that 21.000 people have downloaded the app for iPad. 6000 of them use it daily.

- When it comes to user patterns, we see a small peak in the morning. Then it is relatively quiet between 11 AM and 3 PM. About 70 % of our traffic is between 5 PM and midnight. The highest peak is between 9 and 11 PM, says Stavrum.

He tells us that the ads in the app receives a 5 times higher click rate than on the web site, while average user sessions are 50 % longer.

- What is your main philosophy on iPad?

- Not to fall in love with any hypothesis we might have. We want to launch early and observe what the market and competitors do. Our task is not to prove that we are right about hypothesises, but to adjust quickly to to the market.

Nettavisen believes in HTML5 as a technological platform that can keep the door open to competing tablets.

5. Tablet adjusted browser version

The most basic product for iPad is to adjust the regular web site for tablet use. This includes removing ads and editorial content in Flash, which is not supported by Apple.

Aftenposten.no is one of many web sites that have taken this first step to make sure their products can be used on iPad without any major challenges.

6. Special purpose apps

Some media executives argue that while general news subscriptions are nice, the real value is in creating niche apps serving particular needs for the users.

One example of such a special purpose app is the TV Guide from the Norwegian news site VG.

A similar example: In Denmark the newspaper Berlingske Tidende has launched an app for business news.

The philosophy behind these apps is to take out a part of the general news product and create a product that serves a specific need among users.

Many experts argue that this is in fact the area where media companies may create the most value. General news bundles have less value in the digital world than in the analogue world. But new value can be created by using the expertise of the media company to serve specific needs in the audience. In fact media companies should move from being single-purpose companies – offering one general news product – to becoming multi-purpose companies, wide a wide offering of different specialized content offerings.


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Here are some of the slides I used in my presentation about this topic at the INMA Roundtable:

Do you need to catch up on the latest mobile internet trends? Check this excellent presentation from the highly respected analyst Mary Meeker.

Few analysts receive as much attention when presenting the future internet trends as Mary Meeker. Until recently she was with Morgan Stanley. She is now a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

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The presentation was given together with partner Matt Murphy at Google’s Thinkmobile conference in New York this week.

I really recommend that you flip through it. They elaborates on several mobile internet trends that are taking place at the moment:

• Mobile platforms hit critical mass
• Mobile is global
• Social networking accelerating growth of mobile
• Time shifting to mobile usage
• Mobile advertising – growing pains, but huge promise
• mCommerce – changing shopping behavior
• Emergence of virtual goods and in-app commerce
• Not all platforms are created equal
• Change will accelerate, new players emerging rapidly

You can download the presentation from Slideshare.

Media companies can only succeed in charging users for content if they provide unique value. Here are examples of how some sites try to achieve this.

As news media tries to introduce user payment, I have argued that there are essentially five ways to make users pay for digital content .

The five ways are:

• Unique Content
• Unique Convenience
• Unique Usefulnes
• Unique Packaging
• Unique Experience

Any successful attempt to charge users would need to have a very strong offering in at least one of those five areas. The most successful products will combine two or more of the drivers.

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I recently gave a short presentation of this model at a leadership conference in Estonia of Schibsted, the major European media group that I work for. In the presentation I included some examples of how media companies try to use these five drivers in order to charge users for content.

Here is a summary of the examples (mostly Scandinavian) I used in the presentation – with a few extras that I did not have time to include:

Fiskaren – small niche site with paywall

Fiskaren – or The Fisherman – is a small newspaper in Norway targeting commercial fishermen. The newspaper recently decided to put up a paywall on its site – and succeeded. Traffic to the site went down only very little – and they managed to recruit quite a nice number – comparatively speaking – of paying online subscribers.

The reason is obvious: Fiskaren offers Unique Content. There are very few other sites that write for this niche market. Thus the publication enjoys something close to a monopoly.

The Times – will fail in charging for content

The most talked about example when it comes to introducing user payment is The Times in London, which recently introduced a full paywall around the main web site.

This is a risky strategy, and chances are that they will fail.

The main value proposition to readers is that The Times offers Unique Content. But that is also the big questions mark.

As a national news site in a big English-language market: Do people really perceive the content to be so unique that is worth paying for? The verdict is still out: My prediction is that they will fail.

It is worth noting that The Times also try to offer Unique Usefulness to the readers through its Times Plus concept, with commercial offers and discounts on travels, concerts, etc.

The Wall Street Journal – one of very few success stories

The Wall Street Journal is one of the big success stories so far on user payment. 400.000 subscribers pay for their content online, in addition to many more who have access as part of their newspaper subscription.

Does The Wall Street Journal offer Unique Content?

Yes, it does.

Yet, the most important proposition is Unique Usefulness. The brand is extremely strong in providing financial information – and readers are able to convince themselves and their employers that reading The Wall Street Journal actually make them better at doing their job and in making money for their company.  And with the employers picking up the bill, WSJ got itself a good business model.

Kindle – popular for book reading

Kindle has become tremendously popular for book reading, especially in the USA. Also statistics show that Kindle users buy many more books than other customers at Amazon.

Why is that?

Unique Convenience. 650.000 books are available for sale everywhere, even on the beach. You buy with just one click – and the book has been downloaded to your e-reader one minute later. The screen provides excellent reading quality, even in daylight. The device itself is portable and batteries last up to one month. In short it is just a very convenient way of reading books.

The Weight Club – a combination of usefulness and community

VG in Oslo – and Aftonbladet in Stockholm – both run the Weight Club – a service helping members loose weight. Members are given practical tools to record what they eat and how much they exercise.

It has been a big success – and one reason is how the service combines several of the elements in our model. Foremost it provides Unique Usefulness. Members want to loose weight – and they get practical help in doing so.

There is of course also an element of Unique Content, as the journalists provide in-depth articles about health issues, loosing weight, exercising.

More important, though, is the Unique Experience offered by allowing the members to communicate with each other. Members are in a situation in which they desperately need to communicate with others who face the same challenge. I would guess that the forum probably is an important reason why people choose to stay on as member.

The Wired app – using iPad to its maximum

One of the most talked about iPad apps is from Wired magazine. For the first couple of issues it sold almost as many copies as the paper magazine itself.

This app goes much further than most media apps in utilizing the great editorial opportunities and technical capabilities of iPad, such as integrating video, interactive grapchis, cool functionalities, etc. It really is a different experience than reading the paper magazine.

Unique Packaging is the main driver here. Readers are tech-savvy and appreciate all the cool functionalities much more than an average person probably would.

There is of course also Unique Content. And as with other magazines on iPad it also provides Unique Convenience. You don’t have to go to the store anymore to buy a magazine. Your kiosk has moved into your sofa.

Aftonbladet Plus – a rare success story

Aftonbladet in Sweden has had great success with their Plus concept. Aftonbladet Plus is a subscription service giving readers access to premium content. The Plus content is clearly marked on the frontpage of Aftonbladet.se.
Aftonbladet does indeed provide Unique Content to the more than 100.000 Plus members. The site has separate journalists working specially on writing this content – and often reserves some of the best stories for the Plus members.

But the service also has a very strong element of Unique Usefulness to it. Much of the content are different types of guides making life easier for readers, such as travel guides, guides for buying cars, fixing your house, etc.

The TV Guide – charging for free content

Norwegian news site VG har moved very quickly up on Apple’s Top grossing apps list in Norway with its TV guide for iPad.

The content is easily available for free in any newspaper or news site. Why are people paying then?

First of all the app offers Unique Usefulness. Different functionalities, like the possibility to schedule your TV-night, makes it more practical to use than just a regular TV schedule.

But there is also an equally strong element of Unique Convenience. The primary user situation for iPad is in the sofa at night. And where do we watch TV? In the sofa at night, of course. Therefore the app is not only useful, but also very convenient to use. It’s just there in your hands – as you watch TV. VG has hit very well with a useful product designed for a particular user situation.

Aftenposten: E-paper with 150 years’ archive included

Aftenposten’s digital archive contains newspapers from 1860 up to today’s fresh edition. Containing almost 2 million pages there is no other newspaper in Norway with a similar historic archive. Thus this is indeed Unique content.

In fact this content has been free before. But you had to go to a library, ask for the micro film rolls and patiently go through themthem. It took for ever.

Now readers can do the same in their own home. It is Unique Convenience.

Consumer Reports- helping people solve their problems

People need practical help with their problems – and not only academic approaches.

Consumer Reports in the USA has managed to get more than 3 million peopole to subscribe to surveys, consumer tests and product comparisons on its site.

The reason is clear: Consumer Reports offers Unique Usefulness. It helps people make wise decisions in their everyday life.

An important element is that the service also offers Unique Convenience. Hundreds of sites offer product tests and for users it can take a lot of time to search through all of them and select which are the credible ones. Consumer Reports has over a long time succeed in building such a strong and credible brand that users save time by going directly to its site instead of searching all over for advice.

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What do you think of this way of looking at user payment? Do you have other examples that should be included on the list? I would love to hear your thoughts.

I love reading books – and when it is time for vacation it becomes a major pleasure. But rarely do I now read books in my own language: Norwegian. The reason is simple: Only a few of them are available for e-readers!

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In analyzing digital media trends, I strongly believe in the following statement: If it can be digitalized, it will.

This is true for all media formats: Films, music, games, news, radio, TV, magazines, books, etc.  The analog formats are loosing, while the digital versions are taking over. In some markets there is a revolution, in other markets we are only seeing a slow evolution – step by step. But the direction is unmistakingly the same: Physical media products, like DVD, newspapers and paper books, will eventually disappear or become irrelevant.

As the smart Danish blogger Thomas Baekdal writes: People want digital, so give them digital.

One piece of recent news exemplified this development in a symbolically strong way: Amazon announced that is is now selling 143 digital books for every 100 hardcover books. No exact numbers were given, and there was no mention of paperbacks. Yet it illustrates a paradigm shift in the book industry, which is now feeling the power of the digital wave.  In the US digital book sales this year (up to May) has quadrupled compared to last year, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Let me get back to my own book reading habits. For me e-reading on a high quality screen has been a revolution. I use a Kindle myself, but imagine I can get most of the same advantages on a number of different e-readers, including iPad. Advantages are plentiful:

• The reading quality is as high, or even higher, than in a paper book. Just the small detail of adjusting the font size is worth a lot.
• My e-reader is light and easy to carry around. Going to the beach? I just throw it in the backback.
• No need anymore to bring a number of heavy books on vacation. I have them all in my e-reader. And e-ink screens work great in the sunshine as well (sorry, iPad, on this particular vacation user situation you cannot compete yet.)
• I can buy new books anywhere, even on the beach. Several times I have impulsively bought books after having read the review in a newspaper.
• E-books are cheap. USD 12 for a novel! Great!
• I can continue reading my books on other devices if I prefer, such as my Android phone, iPad or even on my PC.

On vacation on the beautiful west coast of Norway I enjoy reading a great novel - in English - on my e-reader while my son is fishing.

These days  I am enjoying my summer vacation on the beautiful west coast of Norway.   I bring my e-reader with me everywhere, loaded with great novels I would love to read.

But the books are all in English! I don’t have a single book in my own language, Norwegian, on my e-reader.

In fact I have almost stopped reading books in Norwegian. I find reading books on a device like Kindle so convenient that I rarely bother about getting paper books anymore. And since hardly any books in the Norwegian language are available in digital formats, I have just stopped reading them.

It is a pity, of course. And not what I really want. But convenience tends to win when it comes to digital media habits. I choose among the books that are available rather than put on an extra effort to search for the other alternatives.

Actually everything is ready for Norwegian book publishers to be have their offering available on e-readers. The major book publishers have cooperated in setting up a technical solution at the Norwegian Book Data Base – and it is all fully developed. But so far the publishers have decided not to push the “start” button. The reasons are mainly political, as I understand it: A number of issues need to be sorted out in a tightly regulated small book market. One of them is the question of value-added tax. In Norway paper books are exempt for this tax, while digital versions are charged the full rate of 25 per cent.  That makes it difficult for book publishers to offer e-books at a significant discount.

The result is that I can not read most of the books in my own language on e-readers. And because of that I choose English language books instead. Not really a victory for Norwegian book publishers, I guess.

I realize of course that I may not be a typical customer. So far, that is. I am used to reading in English and perceive myself as rather internationally oriented in my thinking. Also I belong to the small minority in Norway who has actually purchased an e-reader device.

Yet I think this personal example, as well as the speed e-reading now is growing in the USA,  demonstrate the risk publishers take if they avoid making digital versions of their work. As the whole business is turning digital, customers are not just going to wait for you. They will go somewhere else instead. And people like myself may turn out not to be so marginal after all. There is a growing group of highly educated people in Norway who find it almost as easy to read in English as in Norwegian. Many of us also use English regurlarly in our work. And e-readers and tablets like iPad are gaining ground very quickly.

Convenience wins. If you want to be a winner in providing content, you need to be sure that you offer it in whatever way is considered most convenient by your users, be it on Kindle, iPad, iPhone or whatever other device is being preferred. Otherwise your customers, like myself, will make a quality tradeoff: Ideally I prefer Norwegian. Of course I do. But for the time being I don’t mind reading in English. And boy, am I surprised! There are so many great books available in that language! And they are so cheap! I love it!

The changes are radical also from the perspective of authors:

I am actually writing a book in Norwegian myself – about Cambodia. It will most probably be published as a paper book in Norwegian early next year. For the time being it is OK that way as e-reading is still uncommon in my country. But I am pretty sure that for the next book I might decide to write, everything will be different.

For this book I am thinking the paper version first, then whatever digital versions the publishing house might come up with next.

For the next book chances are that I will be thinking digital publishing first – with the paper book as only one of several versions. The role of my publishing house probably have changed – and my guess is that I, as the author, will be more in control. In fact I may not need a traditional publishing house at all, at least not for the whole value chain.

As a writer I look forward to that. Readers should too. There will be more choices, sophisticated and compelling reading experiences, lower prices and great convenience in where, when and how you read your “books”.

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User payment, the tablet revolution and more clever advertising solutions. Those are some of the digital media trends that are putting their mark on 2010.

In the beginning of the year I wrote the blog post “8 digital media trends to watch in 2010″.  It has been one of the most read articles on BetaTales this year and I decided it is time to update it. This is a new version of the post, in which I have included some of the developments that have proved to put a strong mark on the year.

Here are 8 of the ditigal media trends that I think are shaping 2010:

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1. Searching for new business models: Lots of experiments with user payment are taking place

Many media houses have signalled that they will try to charge customers for content. “User payment” has become the new buzz word within the media industry, and a large number of experiments have been initiated.

The wave has been headed by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who just put the web site of The Times behind a paywall.

Most media houses probably will not dare to go as far as The Times. Rather many are trying to find solutions where the most loyal readers are paying. One example is The New York Times, which will introduce the socalled meter model in the beginning of next year.

The big challenge for media houses is of course to determine what of their offerings that really provide Unique Value. There is a good thing about these experiments, though. As 2010 draws to an end, the business model of news may have gone through some significant changes. We will know a lot more about which models may actually work and which will be doomed to fail.

One thing is for sure: Most media sites need to improve their business model. Unless you are a market leader, display ads alone normally is not sufficient to run a sustainable news business online. This is becoming even more evident as display ads have become under increasing price pressure in the market. Somehow news sites will need to find additional income sources.

2. Smart phones are revolutionizing mobile web use

We are in the middle of a revolution when it comes to connecting to the web through mobile services. The basic initiator is the iPhone, which revolutionized how people use the web through mobile devices.

This trend is now being accelerated by Google‘s open source operating system Android, which is gaining speed very quickly.

The result is a radical shift in how people use their mobile phones. The apps economy is exploding and a lot of people are now using their mobile phones for tasks previously taken care of by their laptops.

3. Media sites are connecting much more closely to popular social networks

Only a couple of years back many media sites thought they could develop huge social networks on their own. This approach has largely failed. Media sites soon discovered that developing their own social networks required consistant dedication and allocaton of resources. It proved to be very hard to compete on an every-day basis with the huge global players.

Look for instance at this Alexa graph of how the once huge popular Norwegian social network Nettby has lost visitors. Nettby is run by VG.no, the news site of Norway’s second largest newspaper.

Giving up the ambition to create their own social network, a lot of media sites now instead connect to the social networks people do indeed use:   Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

One of many examples is Washington Post, which has introduced the concept Network News. Connecting to Facebook’s API, the news site lets its readers know of stories recommended by their friends.

We are now seeing a large number of media sites using Facebook Connect and similar tools in an effort to create engagement. The reason is simple: The the ability to create engagement and loyalty among users is a determining factor of which media sites will be the winners in the future. This is even more important as much general news have been commoditized.

The trend also forces media companies to realize that the age of one-way communication is a past. In today’s digital world media  need to be in continuous dialogue with their readers – or slowly die.

4. Geo location are becoming the basis of exciting new services

As mobile services explode, the location of users will be more important. Most new smart phones have a GPS included, and content providers will offer services which utilize where users are located at any specific time.

At the same time a number of new social networks are built around the location of its users, such as Foursquare and Gowalla.

Media sites are not necessarily prepared for this trend. Many media sites are accustomed to preparing their content primarily for print and secondarily for the web. Typically they have not added the meta data necessary to offer geo  located services. Now it is the time to do it!

5. Tablets are changing our media habits

The launch of Apple’s iPad has put high speed on the e-reading market for media companies. Media companies are running as fast as they can to come up with them most exciting news apps for the new tablet.

Apple will soon face competition from lighter tablets with even better screens, many of them based on Google’s competing Android platform.

For media companies an interesting user pattern is emerging. iPad is proving itself to be a sofa device – as many users primarily reserve it for the late night time.

And then there are Kindle and other e-ink deviced, designed to offer a very good user experience when reading books and other forms of text.

The number of e-reader devices in the market will grow significantly in 2010 – and so will also the buzz around this technology.

We are bound to see a large number of tablets and other e-reading devices launched in the market within the next year. So far iPad has taken a lead, but the landscape is still in the storm and huge changes will happen.

6. Much greater emphasis on new advertisement models

As space for display ads is abundant and prices drop, media sites are forced to spend a lot of time and money to develop more sophisticated ad models for their customers.  Advertisers demand documentation that ads actually work – and media sites are under increasing pressure to prove the effect of ads on their sites. We will probably see a lot more innovation in this area as the sites try to develop premium ad models which can offer high value both to the advertiser and the users.

7. Real-time

Delaying publishing is yesterday’s method – news and other content today is published as it happens. We are now experiencing the real-time web, driven forward by news feeds of services like Facebook and Twitter.

Users increasingly demand immediacy, a way of presenting news which is both compelling and addictive. At major news events users have increasingly sophisticated ways of following the aggregated real-time news streams from numerous eye witnesses.

This of course poses great challenges for traditional media companies as they face competition from observant amateurs at the scene of the news.

I am convinced news sites increasingly will take advantage of this real-time web and find creative ways of making their coverage evolve live and continuously as new information is being gathered. This includes making efficient use of social media and user content in the daily journalism.

8. News content continue to disaggregate

It seems to me that most editors underestimate how news content is disaggregated. Yet this trend somewhat undermines the very business model of traditional media companies with their emphasis on broad edited packages as their main product.

As a journalist it hurts me to point this out. Yet I am convinced that the content focus slowly moves from one-size-fits-all packages to the single piece of news content and associated meta data.  For many news sites today a significant portion of their users don’t even visit the front page, but go directly to a specific news article from a Google search og aggregator service.

I think there is a clear parallell to the music industry. Their basic product used to be the album, an edited package of an appropriate collection of songs. This made sense when you had to make a physical product – like a record or CD.  But as music was digitalized, the individual song took over as the popular product.

I am not saying there will not be a market for edited packages.  Certainly people will still appreciate qualified editors making a choice for them.  But content pieces will no longer only live within a broader package, but also take on a life of its own being distributed wherever users want to consume it. And media sites will be forced to make their packages much more unique and focus on specific user needs.

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I was one of the presenters at INMA’s conference on tablet PCs and their impact on the European media consumption.

Here are the five advices I gave to make sure you succeed with a media product on iPad.

1. Make sure you are in the content business, not the newspaper business

Most newspaper editors would love to say they are in the content business, but only the best of them really are. Instead many tend to be stuck by mental limitations arising from looking at what they do as primarily being in the newspaper business.

Am I too harsh? That may be so. But to succeed on new digital platforms you need a fresh outlook of your markets. And that requires realizing what business you are in. This is the cultural prerequisite of succeeding on tablets and other digital platforms.

If you think you are in the newspaper business, your products on iPad and similar platforms primarily will be copies of your print newspaper. It might be nice, but it certainly is not sufficient. However, if your change your thinking to being in the content business, numerous possibilities arise. And you will start creating your content differently.

2. Make sure you are in control of your information structure: Content without metadata has no value

At my employer Aftenposten we have worked hard during the last year to ensure a high-quality feed out of our print content management system, CCI. This proved to be a more difficult task than we anticipated. We found that many newspaper articles lacked sufficient metadata to be reused on a different platform. For instance we had no information about which articles that were related to each other.

I talked to the production director at one of the largest English newspaper recently and realized that they had exactly the same challenge. The same goes for most other newspaper companies I have talked to.

The result?

“Producing editorial content for iPad is like going back 15 years in time”,  the production director said. He described how they had to do far too much work manually as a result of not having a good feed out of their production system.

Therefore: A well structured XML feed of your content is extremely important if you are to succeed with new digital platforms. Get started right away if you suspect that you do not have it readily available.

3. Make sure that you really offer unique value to your readers

Just offering an application for iPad will not ensure that readers will run out of their way to buy your product. Make sure that what you offer really has some unique value. I have previously written about how Unique Vallue can be either in terms of Unique Content, Unique Convenience, Unique Usefullness, Unique Packaging or Unique Experience.

4. Make sure that you design your iPad product to make full use of the possibilities on the platform

Just replicating your print product will not be sufficient on iPad. That is only the first generation media product on tablets. Users will expect much more. And Apple offers you a lot of exciting storytelling possibilities on their platform, like touching the news, unique navigation, video, graphics, slideshows, etc. Make full use of them to create a compelling experience for your users – worth paying for.

5. Make sure to create compelling and coordinated experiences across platforms and user situations

Many users will consume your content on more than one platform during the day. A user pattern might look like this: The user wake up at around 6:30 AM and quickly looks through the news on his mobile phone. At breakfast he will read his newspaper or use his iPad – while office hours are reserved for the news web site. Commuting home from work he will check the news on the mobile phone again. In the evening he will relax in the sofa enjoying great content on his iPad before checking the latest news on the mobil before going to sleep.

I think media companies will be smart not to only focus their attention on the separate platforms individually, but also how they can create a sticky relationship with the users across platforms. Try to give your paying users benefits in different users situations during the day, not only when they use their iPad, and there are bigger chances that they will stay loyal. One way of doing this could be to offer some kind of syncronization between the platforms.  One example is how Amazon’s Kindle platform is syncronized between the Kindle e-reader and different apps for PC, iPhone, Android, Blackberry and iPad.

There is one important prerequisite to be able to do this: You must be in charge of the customer relationship yourself. In practical terms it means that you should have your users registered and logged in at your site to use the iPad app, like what for instance Wall Street Journal is doing.

There are many reasons why leaving all your customer data to Apple is not a good idea. This is one of them.

Here are some thoughts about iPad and media companies that I gave in an interview with INMA‘s media blog forum4editors.

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I am one of the presenters at INMA’s Oxford Tablet Summit on May 18th, when 150 media experts gather to discuss the impact of iPad and other tablets. Preparing for the conference I was asked a few questions by INMA’s media blog forum4editors.

With their permission I am reposting the article here:

Just before the INMA Oxford Tablet Summit Forum4Editor talks to John Einar Sandvand, digital media strategist at the Norwegian news company Aftenposten, about tablets. Sandvand also writes the digital media blog BetaTales.

Forum4Editors: Do you think iPad could be overrated – In the topic of tablets, the only brand we hear about is Apple?

I think iPad will have a profound effect on media consumption, just like iPhone completely changed the game for mobile phones. It is a spearhead for new media habits and in that respect it is not overrated. However, whether Apple as hardware and platform will be the big winner in the long run is too early to say. So far they have taken a very clear lead.

Is iPad the only future? Due to great marketing of iPad, do you think there is any room for other tablets? If so, will publishers have to adjust to every single tablet platform that will hit the market?

I am quite sure there will be room for other tablets and even e-ink based devices. The reason is that there are so many different user situations, and a single device cannot serve all of these needs perfectly. iPad, for instance, is too heavy for many types of use and works better as a mirror than an e-reader if you try to use it in your garden. But I agree with Roger Fidler that only a few platforms or app standards will survive, most probably Apple and Android. Hopefully we will also have tools that make it much easier to develop for the different platforms simultaneously.

Do you think tablets could really be called “the future for newspapers”? It is just another medium to read information from.

It is too early to say. But newspapers definitely should explore the possibilities offered by tablets. I think it is too limiting to just stay that it is another medium to read information from. Rather we should look at the new user situations and possibilities to interact with content in compelling ways that is being opened up for us. I believe we will see completely new media products which over time will offer less and less resemblance with the printed newspapers as we know them today. In that respect maybe even talking about “the future of newspapers” on digital platforms is misleading. Maybe we should talk about “the future of storytelling” instead?

Why would someone need a tablet if he/she can read the same information from their cell phones?

It is not just a question of reading information. Rather we should focus on different user situations and what are people’s needs in each one of them. Tablets are able to offer richer and more compelling experiences in specific user situations than other platforms, and that is why many will decide to buy such a device.

Would you call iPad a new space for designers to develop and show their skills?

For sure. Some of the reasons: The bigger and high-quality screen, how readers will use their fingers to navigate the content, integration of video and other forms of multimedia, how simple the device is and how it is perfect to use in a number of situations where you would not automatically bring your laptop.

We live in times when publishers need to cut costs. iPad seems to be the cost generator for publishers: the device itself, plus app developers, whereas producing information is still publishers’ core business. Where is the money in iPads? Can it make selling content easier for publishers? Where are the advertising possibilities?

We are all on unknown territory here. What we do know, though, is that financing quality journalism on digital platforms solely with display ads is not sufficient. That means we should put a lot of effort into experimenting with new business models. Personally I think iPad has the potential of being a very interesting platform for selling content. But I don’t believe in just copying what we are already doing in the newspaper. Instead we should try to create new content products utilizing the unique properties of this particular platform and new storytelling techniques. Advertising possibilities are many and will only be limited by creativity. However, to make full use of the potential, including personalized ads, publishers should think about how they can stay in control of the customer relationship, and not leave it all to Apple.

Do you think iPad / tablets era will further weaken print newspapers/magazines? Or likewise, will they help prolongue their life?

In my opinion one of the biggest challenges for newspapers is that their near monopoly over specific user situations is becoming weaker by the day. Take the breakfast situation as an example. A major advantage for the newspaper has been that it is so convenient to use while enjoying your breakfast. Now this “situational dominance” is becoming weaker: Less people actually eat breakfast, many have TV in their kitchen, they bring the laptop to the table or check the news on smart phones. Tablets will be one more platform moving into the breakfast table challenging newspapers advantage of “unique convenience”. The same happens in other user situations. So yes, tablets will further weaken the position of print newspapers.

Is Aftenposten experimenting with iPads already? How advanced is this stage?

Aftenposten has for more than a year studied closely the development of e-reading, including tablets. We expect to offer products both for iPad and other digital platforms.

Media companies are fighting to be among the first to offer paid news apps on iPad. But most of them are based on a print paradigm. When will we see the first revolutionary second generation digital media app?

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Plenty of media companies seem to rejoice in the opportunities presented by iPad and similar technologies. Finally they seem have a platform to replicate the traditional subscription model.

Has the media industry been saved?

Of course not.

Ipad is great for telling stories, but does not in itself make it easier to make money. One reason is that success in this new media landscape requires a radically different way of thinking.

At the moment almost all media companies of any size are trying to build models for user payment. That includes my own employer Aftenposten, the soon-to-be largest newspaper in Norway, where I work as digital strategist. We all try to create digital products that users will be willing to pay for.

Many hope apps for iPad will prove a viable model. However, after having looked at some of the first news apps for iPad as well as other efforts in the media industry, I think it is fair to conclude as following:

Most of the efforts are in fact trying to replicate the print model of presenting the news. Some of the characteristics are:

• A daily package of the most important stories, neatly edited and presented according to their significance and relevance. Quite often it is more or less an exact copy of the printed newspaper.
• Important print concepts are kept, including “pages”, “edited frontpages”, a daily update rather than a continuous of new stories, layout and navigation similar to the newspaper, text and photos as the core elements of almost all stories, not much interactivity, and the content is based on what is printed in the newspaper.
• A strong belief in the value of receiving this daily package of edited content and an overwhelming confidence in readers willingness to admire the selection skills of the editors of the newspapers even when content in general is being disaggregated on new digital platforms

Is this bad?

Of course it is!

In the long term just copying the print model will not work.

Yet it may still be necessary and even smart to do so in a  transition period in order to really succeed in the next phase.

In an ideal world media companies with a long history of presenting the news to the public would swiftly shift to a new paradigm and start presenting their content to new generations of consumers without the restraints of the past.

However, the world is not ideal. And human beings do not take easily to demands of change. Also: It does take a lot of time and effort to find new ways of doing things, whether you have the traditions or not.

Therefore: Realistically speaking, for most media companies replicating the print experience is a necessary first step towards developing a future digital concept.

There are two main reasons why most media companies end up with this approach.

Technological restraints: It is the easiest – and quite often the only feasible – way to market fast. Productions systems and the workflow in most media companies are set up for production of a print product and a web site. As the print version usually is considered the premium version, most media companies naturally would try to make a digital premium product based on this content, either as a PDF version or a more sophisticated solution.

Cultural restraints: Journalists are trained to think in terms of single products and normally lack the skills to develop content for several platforms simultaneously. For most media companies the transfer from being a “single-purpose company” to become a “multi-purpose company” is a huge cultural challenge not only requiring new skills, but also a completely different mindset.

And let’s face it: Getting out there with a first generation digital product is much, much better than not introducing any product at all waiting for the perfect solution. By experimenting – and failing – media companies gain valuable experience. Chances are that the early movers will be the winners in the long term.

But it is now time to wait for the next generation digital media products. And I imagine we will see some awesome and compelling news apps for iPad later this year as the most brave media companies rething their approach. It will be a completely new way of telling news stories.

What would characterize the second generation digital media products?

Nobody really knows, of course. We have seen a number of media companies publish the results of prototypes.  Many of them are quite inspiring and it will be interesting to watch them come to live on iPad or other platforms.

Here are some of the characteristics I imagine will define the next generation of digital media products:

• They are truly digital products in their own right, not just replicating the print experience.
• The apps will make full use of the multimedia tools available to creative designers. Video, interactive graphics and sound will be integrated in the product in a very smart way.
• The media products will focus on telling great stories in a compelling way.
• Readers will interact with the stories and the media designers will make full use of the possibilities presented by the touch screens.
• The concept of “issues” will fade away. You really don’t need it in the digital world.
• Products will be made for sharing and engagement.

I really look forward to use this next generation media products – and I think we will see them quite soon.

In the meantime I suggest you read this excellent article by Thomas Baekdal (which I admit I have stolen a couple of ideas from): Debunking the digital magazine.

Related articles by on other sites

• Apple’s iPad may give media executives a chance to make money (guardian.co.uk)
• Media Apps Among Most Popular iPad Downloads (blogs.wsj.com)