MagBlog

According to Anita Davis on the Brand Republic site, Google and Apple are shaping up for a fight to capture market share in China, with the iPhone in one corner and Android in the other.

The iPhone has already encouraged some innovative magazine apps (see previous posts) and if developers adopt Android in China's potentially massive, and rapidly developing, market for online media products, the results could be very interesting indeed.

The way that China's publishing approval system copes with any new developments will also be instructive to observe. As things stand at present, globally-branded magazines that want to launch in China either license the title to a local publisher or form a joint venture, but there has to be a local, already licensed, title involved or incorporated. How will this translate to the digital world?

RELATED:
http://www.brandrepublic.asia/Media/searcharticle/China-Unicom-signs-three-year-deal-with-iPhone/2008/36452
http://www.brandrepublic.asia/Media/searcharticle/Chinese-telcos-prepare-for-3G-ad-campaigns/2008/34210
http://www.brandrepublic.asia/Media/searcharticle/Google-and-the-Smartphone/2008/33148
http://mystockvoice.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/apple-china-unicom-receive-regulatory-approval-for-iphone-launch/

Labels: digital magazines, distribution, electronic magazines, iPhone, magazines, mobile, web 2.0

Serendipity (or is it?) sends two separate but related items our way.

In news from Australia, magazine publisher Meredith Corp has just bought a major stake in a mobile marketing company: Keeping Mobile: Meredith Corp. Buys Stake In Hyperfactory

And good old Jakob Nielsen has just released a report on how poor the typical web/smartphone interaction is: The 'Misery' Of The Mobile Web

With increasing focus on the iPhone, Nokia N97, Palm Pre and Google's Android – and the Chrome browser, developed for mobile use – this is beginning to look like an area ripe for development.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Meredith Acquires Stake In Mobile Marketing Firm The Hyperfactory (paidcontent.org)
• Interview with Heather Morgan Shott of Meredith's Mixing Bowl Social Network Community (marketing.blogtanker.com)

Labels: iPhone, magazines, Meredith Corporation, mobile, smartphone, web 2.0

I have previously commented on the (possible) connection between the look and feel of touch screen phones and their ability to provide a substitute for - or alternative to - the look and feel of paper, especially where magazines are concerned.

Now a survey by reevoo.com has confirmed that not just any old touch screen will do. The iPhone and LG's KC910 are the only two models that achieve high ratings. Charles Arthur summarises the findings well in today's Guardian Technology section.

What does this mean for the mobile magazine? I guess that until other phones achieve the same usability as the iPhone and the KC910 that take up will be limited, and that of those two the iPhone must be hands down winner not only because it has sold so well but because it has a direct link to iTunes and the AppStore, which between them provide an easy route to market for both producers (not just of magazines, of course) and consumers.

Labels: electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes iPhone, magazines, mobile

Hey ho, behind the times as usual. Andrew Losowsky reported the first magazine/iTunes/iPhone combination last year on Magtastic Blogsplosion.

Any further sightings or corrections gratefully received and acknowledged.

Labels: digital magazines, digital revenue, electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes iPhone, mobile, web 2.0

I swear that I wrote the previous post (about an iTunes equivalent for magazine distribution) BEFORE I ever saw this article about a magazine app for the iPhone (and also available through iTunes. The author makes an interesting point about the importance of touch and feel to magazines ("haptics"), and then relates it to the iPhone's touch screen.

Meanwhile in another part of the forest, US News & World Report thinks it is a good idea to launch a weekly paid for news magazine in pdf format. I am not sure I agree with Martin Stabe, whose cryptic tweet indicated he could see three major problems with it; I'm guessing the operative words are news, paid for and pdf. News is a highly perishable commodity, no doubt about that, but informed summary and analysis is not – at least in paper form, if the paid for inky The Week is anything to judge by. The pdf format is more tricky as Mark Potts points out in a Recovering Journalist post:

PDF products are beloved solely by printie publishers and editors who think readers want to read the news in a print-like layout, and don't understand that a) electronic delivery is a completely different format than print and b) readers really don't want to have to print out their own magazine or newspaper.

And in yet another leafy glade, Richard Addis suggests on Shakeup Media that newspaper publishers should, among other things, "Create one single national website for local news."

Labels: digital magazines, electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes, magazines, mobile, news magazine, print journalism, readertorial, weekly magazine

Last night I had a stark reminder of the power of a printed magazine: its name is Sideburn.




Sideburn is an A5, perfect bound, 82+4, full colour throwback – or rather, it is the classic iteration of journalistic passion. Produced by two guys in a small town of the flatlands that surround FormerEmap's motorcycling centre of operations, it is all about, and only about, flat-track motorcycles and the people who build and ride them.

In grown-up commercial terms, that's a niche of a niche of a niche. In reality it's a fantastic magazine, full of the kinds of machines and people I love to know about.

For all the teaching I do about professional magazine craft and the digital future of publishing, Sideburn contains one eternal lesson. When you come down to it, there is nothing, NOTHING, to beat passionate editorial in a mobile product. Totally, unconditionally mobile. No electricity or signal or wireless network needed. Available anywhere, anytime.

Great things come in small packages, as Kenny Roberts once found:

Picture from Superbikeplanet.com

Labels: editorial passion, flat track, mobile, motorcycles, print journalism, print magazines