WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Question: Libraries in a digital age: Where do books fit in?

Answer: In our digital tablets.

One year ago I produced a temporary blog about the launch of the first iPad.

I went to San Francisco for the launch and since then the tablets became the media topic of the year.

So, re-reading now the (Spanish) entries of my TABLETMANIA blog I realized that 110 % of what I said, I am sorry, was right!

Not bad for something new and received by many gurus as a DOA, “death on arrival”, product.

They were wrong.

I was right.

So, now that tomorrow Apple is going to present the new iPad2 I decided to update the entries of the blog of try to find editors for an instant book in Spanish and English

Any leads?

If yes, please contact me at: giner@btinternet.com

illustration by Luis Graena

These will be The New Media Kings of 2011.

1. Mobile Media will rule.

2. New Multimedia Digital Narratives will be a must.

3. Tablets will be the best multimedia integrators.

4. iPad still will lead the tablet revolution.

5. Web is to surf, print to read and tablets to dive.

6. Reading is back in a big way.

7. Amazing Visual Journalism will be better than ever.

8. Newsrooms integration will accelerate.

9. iPad will become iPay.

10. Paid content will make print and digital media profitable.

And all these 10 trends can be summarized in just another one:

It’s the wine, not the bottle!

Who is Jesse Angelo?: The leader of this project is a former managing editor of the New York Post, a tabloid that has been losing a lot of money since Murdoch bought this competitor of the New York Daily News. Angelo is a Harvard graduate and lifelong New Yorker. He began as a freelance reporter for The Post’s Page Six in 1999. He was hired full time as a news reporter, then moved to the business desk, where he quickly rose to deputy business editor. Angelo was named metropolitan editor in April 2001.“

Murdoch on The Daily one week ago: “I’m starting a paper in six weeks. A brand new paper. It will be a bit like the New York Post. But it will be national. It will only be seen on tablets. It will only employ journalists – and maybe eight to 10 technicians.”

Promotion: Amazing. Learning from Apple, News Corporation is almost silent, but the viral marketing is going crazy. Serious newspapers like The Guardian have been trap in this noisy silent-strategy publishing rumors with no facts.

Is this paper another example of “Dead On Arrival”?: That’s the main view of all the blind experts, people that have not seen anything and are killing the baby before birth.

My own take: Give them a chance. They have will, money, resources and talent to try this only-tablet national publication. If Murdoch wins, expect a lot of replicas around the world. If he fails, all of us will learn how to do it better. So, let’s wait and see. My only concern is that the time has been too short: a huge project like this cannot be done in six months.

You know…

It will not fly.

It’s a flop.

It’s just crap!

I am returning my iPad.

Well, the last handbook from the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) has good news for us the tablet fans.

We are not a minority.

We are not crazy.

We are not alone.

We are not the exception.

We were right!

Almost 60% of the US consumers plan to buy a tablet within the next 3 years.

Not only iPads but just tablets.

The mobile media revolution is over us.

Another reason not to miss the INMA/NIEMAN/INNOVATION Harvard Tablet Summit.

Cambridge, December 2-3, 2010.

A Worldwide Summit to learn, master and share new ideas.

Be there!

Chang Ma, vice president of marketing for LG in the WSJ announcing is Google Android OPTIMUS, the first tablet of his company:

The first LG tablet will set itself apart from Apple’s iPad by focusing on the ability to create content, rather than simply display it.

Mr. Ma said that the iPad is a great device, but he doesn’t do much work on it.

“Our tablet will be better than the iPad.”

The tablet, Mr. Ma said, will include content focused on creation such as writing documents, editing video and creating programs.

It will also have “high-end features and new benefits,” many of which will focus on productivity.

Interesting challenge.

Yes, the iPad is mainly a consumption device.

90% consumption.

10% creation.

More competition is always good.

Another reason not to miss the INMA/NIEMAN/INNOVATION Harvard Tablet Summit.

Cambridge, December 2-3, 2010.

A Worldwide Summit to learn, master and share new ideas.

Be there!

(Picture: a Google tablet mockup)

Tags: Chang Ma, Harvard Tablet Summit, INMA, LG, NIEMAN, Optimus, Tablets, iPad, productions versus creation

I just subscribed to The Times and Sunday Times websites.

Cheap and easy: 1 GBP for one month, and after that 2 GBP a week.

Why?

Because you cannot read anywhere else smart columns like this one.

Andrew Sullivan on the real crisis of American newspapers.

A few “tapas”:

-Many US newspapers have simply become pale, quivering shadows of what they once were.

-Once, they aggressively scrutinised the powerful and exposed secrets, but they have — with some exceptions — become mouthpieces for the powerful, enablers of propaganda and prim schoolmarms when it comes to telling people what they want to know.

-A Harvard study recently examined the full record. This was its finding: “[From the 1930s to 2002] The New York Times characterised waterboarding as torture in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and the Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, in 2002-8 the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture.

-The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterised the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture.”

-Over time this kind of editorial cowardice gets through to the average reader. She senses she is not reading a truly independent press, eager to offend, sceptical of the powerful and determined not to mince words. And so she looks elsewhere. The editors and producers of American journalism have long wondered why their industry has been in decline. Perhaps they should try looking in the mirror.

Oh, boy!

Talk about multimedia, citizens journalism, social media, new platforms, interactivity, tablets and other magic words…

That’s nothing.

That’s wrong.

That’s a distraction.

Newspapers will be saved not by gadgets, technology and buzzwords but by real journalism.

Period!

Roy Greensland writes a good headline:

Would Murdoch have spent £650m on a print plant if the iPad had been around?

Well, his response will be YES.

But as Burda or Rusbidger, I am sure that they know that these are tha last huge printing presses that the buy.

Printing is not our business.

Vertical integration is not the right strategy.

Universities need buildings but they don’t own construction companies.

And the cars of Ford needed tires and many years ago owned big rubber plantations in Brazil.

Yes, the 10,000 km² of land of Fordlandia!

So are the new mobile digital tablets going to be the next BIG IDEA?

Yes.

But no media company needs to become an Apple, Microsoft, Samsung or Nokia…

We are not in the bottling business.

We are in the wine business.

Content matters.

Platforms, no.

Newsprint will survive.

Printing presses will survive…

But journalism will not need them like in the past.

More cheap, green and efficient digital platforms will be available in less than three years.

So cheap that media publishers will be more than happy to give these devices free to their subscribers.

When you see than in less than 10 days the photo application of The Guardian has generated 50,000 downloads, you know that the iPad and the digital tablet are here to stay.

The iPad and all the tablets… are the past.

The future is the rubber newspaper, the rubber magazine, the rubber iPad

This Nokia made of memory plastic can be molded to fit around a wrist and then can be heated to return to it’s original shape.

Flexible iPads.

This is the future.

Bryan Chaffin reports:

Apple’s new iPad has helped to define the broader tablet market, even though it has yet to ship, according to research firm ABI Research.

The firm said Tuesday that shipments of tablet devices – defined as touchscreen interface devices measuring five to eleven inches with WiFi, video and gaming capabilities, will measure four million units in 2010, and rise to 57 million units by 2015, prodded along by the iPad.

“Apple’s iPad is not the first media tablet,” senior ABI Research analyst Jeff Orr said in a statement. “But it does help define this new device category.