Mobile news consumption is picking up very fast

The changes are a revolution: Almost one in three visits to Norwegian media products are now from mobile platforms.

For two years I have been recording how users choose the different digital platforms of Norway’s biggest newspaper: Aftenposten.

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The dramatic changes over the last 24 months are indeed a revolution.

People are moving from PCs to mobile platforms at increasing speed. It is only a matter of time before smartphones and tablets will outperform the PC as the major platform for media consumption in Norway.

With 1,3 million unique visitors to its web site every week in a country of 4,5 million there is no reason to believe that the numbers from Aftenposten are not representative for the media market in Norway as a whole.

So let us compare which platforms people used to consume the news from Aftenposten in January 2012 with the same month two years ago.

PC versus mobile platforms

Some conclusions

• Visits from mobile platforms have increased from 3,7 % of the total in January 2010 to 30,5 % in January 2012 (23,9 % mobile phones, 6,6 % iPad).
• Two years ago there were 26 times as many visits from PCs as from mobile phones.  Last month there were only 2,3 times as many visits from PCs as from mobile phones and tablets.
• So far there are no signs that the new traffic from mobile phones and tablets have cannibalized the traffic from PCs.  Instead the mobile visits are coming on top of the visits already from PCs.
• iPad is picking up quickly – and made a jump during the Christmas holiday. Almost seven per cent of the total visits to Aftenposten’s products now come from the iPad.

Android picking up market shares quickly

There are also interesting developments in what type of mobile phones people use to access the news site:

• Apple’s IOS has stayed the biggest mobile operating system ever since this statistics started two years ago. But in January 2010 IOS was barely bigger than Nokia’s Symbian operating system.
• Since then Symbian have almost disappeared completely and instead Android phones are starting to pick up market shares at increasing speed.
• Last month IOS was 53,6 % of the mobile visits, while 34,5 % used Android phones. The gap between the two is decreasing every month.
• Especially the Android-based  Samsung Galaxy gt-i9100 seems to gain popularity quickly in the Norwegian market. From December 2011 to January 2012 the number of visits from iPhones actually decreased by 3,7 per cent, while the number of visits from Samsung Galaxy phones increased with 15,1 %.  No wonder which phone was under the Christmas trees!

Media companies hope to build solid revenue streams by betting on user payment on mobile platforms. But a look at Apple’s top grossing lists for iPhone and iPad sends a warning signal.

I was involved in launching a paid recipe app for iPhone in the Norwegian market at couple of weeks ago -and that made me follow closely the top grossing lists for iPhone and iPad.

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Apple provides three different top charts for apps: Top free apps, Top paid apps and Top grossing. While the first two rank how many apps are downloaded, the third ranks how much money the apps bring in at any time. The top apps on this list may not necessarily be the ones downloaded the most, but they still succeed in bringing in money for the developers.

What types of apps dominate the top grossing list?

To find out I went through the top 25 grossing lists for both iPhone and iPad in the Norwegian market as they were ranked in the evening on Sunday, June 12th. All apps were assigned to one of four categories:

• Usefulness. Apps that primarily help people perform a specific task
• Entertainment. Primarily games.
• Media/content. Apps that primarily are designed for consumption of news or other types of media content.
• Social. Apps that primarily are built on people connecting to each other

Top grossing iPhone apps

Not a single app on the top 25 grossing list for iPhone apps was a media app. In fact you would not find a media app among the next 25 apps on the list either.

Two of the 25 apps were categorized as “social”.

However, the two dominating categories were “Entertainment” (13 apps) and “Usefulness” (10 apps).

I noted another interesting aspect: Only one of the ten most grossing iPhone apps were priced “normally”.  That was the Hipstamatic app priced at NOK 11 (USD 2). All the rest at the top 10 carried either an extremely high price tag (4 navigation apps priced at USD 75 and above) or were free (games apps that made money on in-app purchases).

Almost all the rest of the top 25 list followed the same pattern: Either they were userpaid apps helping people achieve a specific task, like finding the owner of a car or creating music, or they were free or almost-free games apps.

Conclusion so far: To succeed in bringing in money on iPhone apps you should either try to be extremely useful or succeed in creating compelling entertainment for your users.

Here is the top grossing list for iPhone apps:

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Top grossing iPad apps

The top grossing list for iPad apps in the Norwegian shows a slightly different pattern, yet more or less the same conclusions can be drawn.

12 of the top 25 grossing apps are within the “Usefulness” category, while 11 belong to “Entertainment”. Also for iPad we see some highly priced navigation apps quite high on the list. In the “Entertainment” category the main difference from the iPhone market was that only very few of the top grossing apps were free.

Two apps in the “Media/content” category made it to the top 25 grossing list.

The first was already in the third place on the list:  ”Lillesøster”, a children’s book specially designed for the iPad format and with a price tag of 5 USD.

On ninth place was Aftenposten, the news app from Norway’s largest newspaper. (Disclaimer: I work for Media Norge, the owner company of Aftenposten).

Aftenposten’s news app is free to download and could also be used for free for the first weeks after it was launched on March 31st. This has led about 40.000 people to download the app. However, since June 7th Aftenposten has required users to pay. Access is available only as a subscription and can be bought both from within App Store and from Aftenposten’s web site. There are also bundled products which include the iPad subscription. These can only be bought from Aftenposten’s web site.

It is obviously too early to say how Aftenposten’s iPad app will rank on the top grossing list in the long term. The ranking is also complicated by the fact that parts of Aftenposten’s income on the app is not reflected in App Store’s grossing list.

Conclusion for iPad: To succeed in bringing in money on iPad apps your chances seem to be much higher if you bet on meeting people’s need for usefulness or entertainment. But looking further down the top grossing list media/content apps seem to do much better on iPad than on iPhone.

Here is the top grossing list for iPad apps:

[table id=3 /]

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What does this mean for media companies?

Is it hopeless to charge for media content on iPhone and iPad?  Of course not. But the top grossing lists give some clear hints to what in particular drive people to pay on these new platforms. Publishers are smart to study this to see if some of the elements can be introduced in news apps as well. For instance: How do you use your media product to help people achieve their goals? What can you do to make it really useful in people’s life? Is there any way to gamify the news experience – or to use in-app purchases creatively?

The Apple’s top grossing lists for Norway will, however, not give the full picture of how media apps will do when it comes to user payment:

• Few media companies have so far tried user payment extensively. Aftenposten is the first major news company in Norway to put its iPad app behind a paywall.
• Many media companies have so far kept most or all of their user paid revenues out of App Store. Typically the users will pay for the product at the media company’s web site – and then get access for free on iPad by entering login information. As we all know, Apple is now tightening the rules for how this can be done, but so far most revenues on media apps have been kept outside the App Store statistics.

One in five Norwegians now consume media content on mobile platforms on a daily basis. Changes happen so fast that media companies struggle to keep up.

Hardly before has the media industry seen changes in user patterns take place as fast as during the last year. And this time we are not talking about how people are abandoning the printed newspaper (they still are), but how mobile media consumption is exploding.

TNS Gallup, a major market research company, just published its latest data about how Norwegians use media content on mobile platforms.

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Norway is a country of almost five million people. Yes, it is a small country. Yet Norway and the other Scandinavian countries are technologically advanced – and the population is generally considered to be early adopters of new technology. Because of this, changes in media habits in these countries should be of interest to media companies in other countries in the Western world as well.

The latest report from TNS Gallup shows how quickly Norwegians now are adopting mobile phones as a platform for consuming media content.

In the first quarter of 2011 19,3 % of Norwegians – or one in five – consumed media content daily on mobile platforms. That is twice as many as one year ago.

Here is a graphical presentation of the changes in use of mobile media content during the last few years.

For media companies still struggling to come to grips with users moving from the printed newspaper to the web this poses a new challenge. It may seem like readers’ habits are changing faster than many media companies are able to adapt.

The transformation from PCs to mobile platforms is driven by two forces:

The smartphone. Media habits changed almost overnight with the introduction of iPhone. Suddenly people started using their mobile phones to surf the web.

• The iPad – and other tablets. iPad is opening up new user situations for media content.

I looked at how these changes play out with Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten (disclaimer: I work for Media Norway, the owner company of Aftenposten).

In April one in six visits to Aftenposten’s digital products were on mobile platforms.

One in six!

Or 16,3 % to be more specific. 12,4 % on mobile phones and 3,9 % on iPad.

The percentage is up from 3,7 % in the beginning of 2010.

I don’t have access to data for the other Norwegian media houses, but I am pretty sure the trend is similar.

It is a dramatic shift in just one year – and the revolution is bound to continue. This means that media houses have to hurry up to develop great mobile versions of their content. In Norway most large media companies already have quite good mobile versions. However, very few are able to make significant revenues yet on the mobile platforms.

More than anything, though, the platform shifts offer new opportunities for media companies to create compelling products for new user situations. We can already observe very specific user patterns throughout the day on the different devices:

• News content on PCs is consumed throughout the whole day, without any clear peak. In fact the usage is at its highest while people are at work.
• iPad is a sofa device. The usage peak is from 6 to 11 PM at night.
• The mobile phone usage pattern has a big peak early in the morning and another one in the late afternoon as people commute home from work.  But the most intense usage is from 11 PM to midnight. All of a sudden media companies are finding themself in people’s beds!

The usage of Aftenposten.no on PC, iPad and mobile phones have very different patterns throughout the day

So what does this mean?

First of all: Media companies have an unprecedented chance to reach their users throughout the day and in whatever situation they might be.

The challenge now is to develop smart cross-platform media products that can be accessed anytime, anywhere and at whatever device the users choose to consume the content.

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:

Screenshot of VG+, the iPad app from Norwegian news company VG

Apple’s ‘Jesus tablet’ seemed to be the news industry’s best hope of salvation but few publishers are finding apps to be the moneyspinners they so desperately want.

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This article titled “iPad apps – still more dash than cash” was written by Jemima Kiss, for The Guardian on Monday 10th January 2011 06.59 UTC

The news industry embraced the launch of Apple’s iPad in April 2010 with something that felt like true love: feverish anticipation at that first meeting, lengthy sentimental eulogies and whispers of hope that this must finally be The One.

In an industry largely uninterested in gadgets, the iPad offered optimised reading and viewing, portability – and a built-in payment system wired to the credit cards of 280 million iTunes customers. Editorials began asking if the iPad might be the saviour of an industry in a seemingly terminal decline.

But less than a year on there are already signs that the romance is fading, along with those first flushes of novelty. The latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations in the US show average monthly downloads slumping by the end of 2010. Only two publishers were brave enough to share their figures.

In for a long wait

Condé Nast’s Wired US iPad magazine sold 73,000 copies through the app in its first nine days in May 2010 but that fell to 23,000 in November – a bad month all round. Vanity Fair sold 10,500 in October but 8,700 in November, and GQ’s average fell from 13,000 in October to 11,000 in November. And Men’s Health, published by Rodale in the US, fell from 2,800 monthly shortly after the iPad launch to 2,000 by November.

These baby steps need to grow up fast if they are to compare to the sales and profits enjoyed by print. Last year’s census by the Association of Online Publishers showed nearly two-thirds of publishers pinning their hopes on in-app content as the best chance of making money through mobile – but they might be in for a long wait. The tablet userbase is small and the potential app userbase outside the US smaller still – and Apple takes 30% on every app sold.

Analysts Research2Guidance estimate that 100,000 app sales at 79p would make the publishers £40,000 – not exactly a moneyspinner, when they will have to wait three years to see a return. By then, Apple’s domination of the tablet market could be at an end, bringing a new problem of developing for multiple devices – though Screen Digest senior analyst Dan Cryan expects 6.5 million people will use an iPad by 2014.

If there is any business model to be found for innovative publishing on the iPad, Condé Nast is determined to find it. Albert Read, general manager of Condé Nast UK, acknowledged it is an “undoubtedly expensive” commitment. “It’s a punt,” he said. “A long-term hope is that we create something exciting for readers and advertisers – and that brings its own returns over time. In five years we will have reaped those benefits.”

Read would not comment on how much Condé Nast has invested or when it expects to see a return. But he described the projects as “resource intensive”, with Wired’s app needing up to five dedicated staff. Print pages have to be redesigned and copy resubbed, and advertisers – who are keen to experiment, Read said – have to submit horizontal and vertical formats.

“Though we are ambitious, we are also relatively cautious. We haven’t launched apps for every magazine and have only done one experimental edition for Vogue.

“Rather like the dotcom era, there was a period of hype and excitement over the iPad and then things calmed down. In two, three, perhaps five years, that excitement will be justified.”

Rupert Murdoch seized on “the Jesus tablet” as part of his crusade to elevate his news business from free web content. With a reported investment of m (£19m), he has a team of 100 in New York furiously putting the finishing touches to The Daily, News Corp’s dedicated iPad newspaper, which is due to roll out next Monday. The Daily is expected to include a new push subscription feature that automatically delivers and charges for weekly or monthly editions.

Murdoch will be hoping to outshine Virgin boss Richard Branson, whose own New York-based iPad magazine, Project, launched in November, charging .99 per month. But whether Murdoch can turn around his dubious track record in digital projects, from Iguide to MySpace, remains to be seen.

The Daily could become a mass-market phenomenon – a next-generation Sun – but at 99c (62p) a day, it will be some time before the experiment sees a return.

The Financial Times took advantage of the traditionally lucrative financial news sector to launch an extensive app in May. Download numbers have reached 487,000 in total, the FT said, with iPad generating more than 10% of new digital subscribers. Deputy chief executive Ben Hughes has said that iPad ad revenues reached £1m in the first six months, and ad inventory has been sold out since launch. The app is free and users are encouraged to register to read 10 free stories per month. Subscription models

Common complaints among readers include huge file sizes, and, with more than 300,000 apps in the app store, visibility is also a problem. But by far the biggest issue is that of offering a subscription model within an app. Apple does not share names and addresses of iTunes App Store customers, meaning publishers cannot build that valuable subscriber database. Reports have persisted since September that Apple is working on a subscription service for news and magazine apps; that could launch alongside the second version of the iPad rumoured for April – if it doesn’t debut in Murdoch’s Daily first.

“Apple needs a better balance between its own desire to have visibility of all the data, and the needs of publishers to get data about their readers that is crucial to their businesses,” said Edward Roussel, Telegraph Media Group’s digital editor.

Both the Telegraph and Guardian used big-name advertisers to launch free iPad apps. The Guardian’s Canon-sponsored photography app, Eyewitness, had had 404,559 downloads at last count, with a separate news iPad app under development. Audi has extended its initial 12-week sponsorship of the Telegraph’s iPad app, of which about 100,000 have been downloaded since launch, and version 2 is due out by the end of March.

Roussel said the Telegraph’s in-app registration system shows the iPad is attracting new readers, with most aged between 30 and 50. “We’re making reasonable sponsorship but at this stage apps are more a beta product than a substantial revenue earner.”

Those in the industry express optimism but a lack of confidence in how best to exploit the tablet explosion. Roussel says apps offer the best of the old world and the new. “There’s no question, , it’s a highly significant development of the media industry and the potential is massive. But it will take years, not months, to work out how to make apps better than both the web and newspapers, which they have the potential to be.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

But is the assumption valid?

I would argue not.

And I am quite sure that all the experiments in user payment will prove the assumption wrong! Many attempts at selling content or introducing user payment will fail. Sales will be minimal – and that will make media executives question what they did wrong.

The reason for this is that many editors overestimate the Unique Content aspect of their product, and tend to ignore how important Unique Convenience is in making people pay for a newspaper product. Also, the real value of a newspaper is not necessarily the individual pieces of content, but how they have been put together into a package.

Espen Egil Hansen, chief editor of the hugely successful Norwegian news site VG.no, recently in a publice debate described  a surprising challenge when the newspaper prepared its soon-to-be-launched iPad app: Many newspaper articles were just too short to work well on iPad!  He pointed out how in fact many web site articles were much longer and deeper than the print articles. Since VG based its Pad app primarily on the printed paper content, this turned out to be a practical challenge.

Why do most media executives equal premium content with newspaper content? The answer in fact is simple: They assume that the same rules for valuation that they were used to from the print business also are valid in the digital businesz.

Do not ever assume that! The rules of the game are entirely different!

Did you hear me?

I will repeat: The rules of the game in the digital business are entirely different!

What will happen then?

I am sure there will be a lot of success stories. A number of them will be big surprises to all those of us who try to follow media trends carefully. However, there will also be a lot of failuresl. Many media companies will be forced to realize that people just don’t want to buy their products. And the media executives will realize two important truths:

Truth number One: Willingness to pay for content comes from much more than the content itself! If you base your user-paid digital offerings on the content alone, like many do when they just offer a PDF version of their papier, chances are that you will fail.

Truth number Two: We have to think in new ways about what constitutes Unique Value when it comes to content! Of course Unique Content is important, but primarily as one of several elements in a broader offering to the public.

And here is the big revelation for senior editors at the big media companies: They need to rethink their content strategy to fit with the new digital reality.

Now we come to the core of why I think failed attempts at introducing user payment will indeed improve the quality of journalism

The reason is this: Editors will be surprised to discover that people were not willing to pay for their content when it was disaggregated into its individual content pieces.

After this realization comes a painful examination into what readers really value.

And this is exactly the moment when new value and opportunities are being created!

Editors will realize that much of what they considered premium only had value as part of a specific content bundle in print. Once it was disaggregated and repackaged, the content lost its value. Readers had valued the convenience of having a nice content bundle delivered to their door in the format of a printed paper for breakfast. But suddenly they now had many different options to choose from in the same user situation.

If you ever thought you had unique content: Think again! Are you really sure?

What, then, constitutes unique content?

This is the really tough question. Providing good answers is hard. Yet, that is what we need to do. Realizing (as we will) that our traditional content is not sufficient to make users pay, we must try to identify the content and associated user situations that will trigger users to pay.

And here is the important understanding: What used to be perceived as having value in the printed world, suddenly may no longer have value in the digital world. Also important parts of the “free” content on the web may have great value if it is repackaged and distributed in specific ways.

The rules of the game have changed!

Depressing, isn’t it?

Maybe, but there is also a window of opportunity. The major challenge is that you need to identify content that people will be willing to pay for.

And here lies promising future for the next phase of journalism. As editors realize that readers do not automatically want to pay for their content when it is digitalized and disaggragated, they will start to search for content with unique value for readers. That will not be abundant news , which will still be financed solely by ads, but rather content that is difficult to find anywhere else.

The creative process of identifying this content will be good for journalism. It will go to the core of what readers really value and force journalists and editors to rethink how they look at their role.

It will also bring new types of content from the media companies. It might be longer, deeper or richer.  In many cases it will be extremely well structured to make it easier to distribute quickly and smartly. Probably it will to a larger extent tend to answer questions like why and how. For sure it will involve multimedia and other new story telling techniques. And it will be “made-for-share” in social networks. Much creativity will be invested in how the content is packaged and in what situations it is distributed to the users.

We will see completely new formats, set free from the physical limitations of the newspaper. Some of the formats will be longer than newspaper companies ever made before. And we will see sophisticated integration of interactive multimedia elements. In short: Journalism might be taken to a new level!

Maybe we will see journalism going in two different directions:

• One format for free journalism. This is the event based news journalism that is designed to draw massive traffic to news sites. This journalism will be short, snappy and financed by ads.
• Another format for premium journalism. This will be longer and more structured formats and they will be trying to answer questions like why and how. Much emphasis will be based on how to package and distribute the content to specific user situations. For this content there need to be a very strong USP – Unique Selling Point.

As the market develops, media companies probably will move resources from free to paid journalism, especially if strategies for bringing in user payment are successful. And that reallocation of resources will bring about better journalism, I think.

One thing I am sure about, though: Premium journalism in the digital future will not be the same as newspaper journalism in the past.

But I think it will bring even more value to the users.

What are your thought on this?

Even before iPad has been launched in Scandinavia, ten thousands of people have managed to get hold of a tablet. But they are almost all male!

In hardly any other parts of the world there is as high Internet penetration as in the Scandinavian countries. Scandinavians love techology and tend to be early adopters of whatever new gagdets and trends that pick up speed in the international market.

Therefore: Even before iPad has been launched in the Scandinavian countries, the biggest web sites in Sweden, Norway and Denmark register ten thousands of visits from local iPad users every week.

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But who are these early adopters in the high tech market of Scandinavia? And what do they use iPad for?

The Swedish communication agency Daytona decided to find out and has just completed a survey of Swedish iPad users. The results give some insight into the user habits of early adopters of iPad. As iPad probably will be launched in Scandinavia within a very short time, I believe these results might be of interest to an international digital media audience as well.

• Read more about the survey here (in Swedish)

272 Swedish iPad owners have responded to the survey. Three out of four of them live in the cities and nine out of ten – !!! – also own an iPhone. Also: Nine out of ten iPad users are men!

One interesting result is that 57,7 % say that they share their iPad with other members of their household. This is noteworthy as Apple has not really designed iPad for sharing. Rather it is constructed as a personal device without any possibility to log on to the tablet with different user IDs.

When do you use your iPad during the day?

Almost two out of three iPad owners say that they use the iPad several times per day. This is similar to what we have seen in Norway: The iPad is primarily a sofa device used at home in the night!

But what do they use it for?
Here is a summary:

What we see, is that e-mail, news, video and social media are the most common uses of iPad.

Many people report that their media habits have changed after starting to use iPad. For instance as many as one out of five iPad users say that they have stopped readings newspapers alltogether!

One in three use television less than before, according to the survey.

Early adopters in Scandinavia choose to download a large number of apps, according to the survey.

More than 60 per cent say that they normally start their iPad for a specific purpose.

What should we make out of this? Basically it is an early indication of how tablets might be used in the Scandinavian market, where people often tend to be early in adopting new technology. However, this group will not be representative for the average users one or two years from now.

• Read more about the survey from Daytona here (in Swedish)

From a media industry perspective two results are worth noting:

• Although many use iPad for news, apps from media companies are rare on the top list of what apps have been downloaded.
• Four out of ten users say they have either stopped reading newspapers or are reading them less.

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Talking of iPad and Sweden: Media company Bonnier just conceptualized their idea of news in the tablet format

In February Bonnier caught a lot of attention with their visualization of how magazines might look on tablets. Now their creative lab has done the same for newspapers. Watch this video about “News ++” for inspiration. What do you think?

[iframe: src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/17148059" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0">]

Gartner and IDC data shows slower growth in sales of PCs than expected – with Apple tablet reckoned to account for shortfall.

This article titled “iPad chokes netbook sales” was written by Charles Arthur, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 14th October 2010 07.31 UTC

Netbook sales are slowing as people consider buying tablet computers – particularly Apple’s iPad – instead, according to data released separately by research companies Gartner and IDC with their analysis of third-quarter computer sales worldwide.

Overall, sales of PCs grew slower than had been expected. Gartner said 88.3m were sold in the third quarter, up 7.6% compared with the same period a year ago when 82m were sold, but below its earlier forecast of 12.7% growth (which would have meant 92.5m sold).

IDC, which uses a different method to measure sales, said there were 89.7m sold, up 11% (80.8m) but nearly 3% below its expectations (which would have seen 92m sold).

The data exclude the millions of sales of Apple’s iPad, which Gartner and IDC do not classify as a “PC” for the purposes of their data.

Horace Dedlu, who runs the Asymco consultancy, estimates that if the iPad were included in the figures, it would add 4m to the PC sales figures – neatly closing the gap between Gartner’s sales forecasts and the observed outcome.

Excluding the iPad, PC sales growth in the US was just 3.8% year on year, much slower than second-quarter growth, which was 11.7% – and a long way short of IDC’s expectations of 11% growth.

IDC said that the slower sales were due to the influence of Apple’s iPad on consumers’ intentions on buying PCs, and that it had had a notable negative effect in the US on the netbook market.

Gartner said that sales of “consumer mobile” PCs – netbooks and laptops – were the weakest in years in the US. “The third quarter historically is a strong consumer quarter, led by back-to-school sales,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “Consumer mobile PC demand, driven by low-priced notebooks, including mini-notebooks, slowed after very strong growth the past two years.”

She added: “Media tablet hype around devices such as the iPad has also affected consumer notebook growth by delaying some PC purchases, especially in the US consumer market. Media tablets don’t replace primary PCs, but they affect PC purchases in many ways. At this stage, hype around media tablets has led consumers and the channels to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to buying a new device.”

Gartner said HP remained in the top slot for worldwide sales, with 15.4m, followed by Acer (11.5m), Dell (10.8m) and Lenovo (9.1m).

In Europe, Gartner said there were 27.3m PC sales, up 7.3% from the same period in 2009 (25.4m). “The western Europe PC market slowed as professional buyers and consumers held back on PC purchases,” the company noted.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

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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.