How the Mystery Mac Will Change Journalism

The journalism world eagerly awaits the now mythic Spring arrival of Apple's game-changing Tablet, or whatever they're going to call it. It's been a big hush-hush secret for so long, that sometimes it seems like maybe the whole notion was just a dream.

That hasn't stopped graphic artists -- with no inside knowledge of the tight-lipped Apple kingdom -- from imagining what this unwrapped dream toy might look like.

Ron Callari gathered no less than 20 possible designs on Inventor Spot, and frankly they all look pretty cool. We'll be happy to play with any of them -- just hurry up and get one on the market already!

Will it look like an oversized iPhone? A souped-up Kindle? A touchscreen MacBook? A Mac Pro with app-like navigation buttons? A lidless laptop? A big docked PDA with keyboard?

And what will it be called? iPad? iTab? iTablet? MacTab? MacPad? MacTablet? TouchPad? TouchTab? TouchTablet? TouchBook?

Bets, anyone?

To see what this mystery Mac might do to transform print journalism into a total multimedia experience, check out this video of a hypothetical issue of Sports Illustrated. It's like the magazine literally comes to life. Tell us you wouldn't spend a couple bucks for an app that sings and dances like this:



The smarter print publications (e.g. Conde Nast's Wired) are prepping for this day, since they know that a customer who won't spend a nickel for a print issue, or for Web content, will happily fork over a few bucks for iPhone apps -- and this will seem like an extension of that.

Steve Jobs is conditioning us the same way he got all the music freeloaders to pony up a buck a song via iTunes -- thus revolutionizing the music industry. True, the record companies and record stores still took a lethal hit, but he proved that there's a viable market for music; it was just a matter of upending the financial model by altering attitudes and behaviors. We suspect he'll do the same for journalism.

So news organizations would be wise to to learn from the mistakes of the entrenched music industry that bemoaned its fate (and hastened its demise) by cursing its customers. It fell into extinction while a savvy outsider came along and drank its milkshake. What can you do today to prepare yourself or your company for a multimedia future, so that there will be no more blood?

Here's our recommendation. Invest heavily in the best videojournalism talent, training and equipment. Make sure you and your staff recognize the value of video that is professionally produced, and represents excellent journalism standards and storytelling qualities. Newspaper- and magazine-produced online video is coming of age, in fits and starts. Because publishers didn't experience an immediate return on their (minimal) financial investment, and those pre-roll ads didn't materialize as quickly as they had hoped, a lot of them got nervous and withdrew from that arena. Or, worse, they stayed in the game with orphaned third-rate product, which nobody watched, and so they buried it deep on their Websites so nobody could even find it, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that "nobody watches serious video."

But with the new Mac whatchamathing on the horizon, now is the time to re-think video strategies. Apple will succeed where nearly every journalism Website has failed. Why? Because it will successfully integrate words and moving images, in a new and exciting way that has mysteriously eluded print publishers and broadcasters. The device's portability and touch-screen capability will help catapult the online visual experience to the next level.

But ultimately, it's just a platform -- a fancy bucket waiting to be filled. iTunes is pure genius, but it would be worthless without talented composers, instrumentalists, singers, arrangers, producers. Similarly, for multimedia journalism to succeed, we'll need talented reporters, writers, shooters, editors and producers.

Trust us, video is where the future lies. At KobreGuide, we're betting the farm on it.

CJR Does the Math: Kindle Doesn't Add Up

The Columbia Journalism Review did the math and demonstrated that there's no way that Amazon's Kindle DX is going to save the newspaper industry -- corroborating our previous thoughts on the subject.

Then CJR re-did the math the next day, taking into account the previously overlooked fact that a whopping seventy percent of revenues will go to Amazon and also to the wireless service that powers the whole concept ... and found that the results were even more dire than they had calculated. If a reader pays $14/month, the newspaper pockets only $4.20 of that.

CJR also factored in a Bloomberg report about a visionary Knight Ridder experiment conducted in 1992, designed to culminate in its own portable newspaper-reading device intended to boost readership and revenues. After three years, the project fizzled and the 10-person lab was shut down.

A key flaw in the Kindle plan is the absence of any way to display full-color non-text advertising -- a necessary source of revenue. But others are undeterred.

Gannett Co., which stopped home delivery of its Detroit Free Press four days a week, said it will distribute the newspaper on another e-reader being developed by Plastic Logic Ltd. ... Hearst Corp., which owns the Houston Chronicle, also invested in a company developing a reader.

[But] the Kindle just looks like another way for newspapers to turn profitable customers into unprofitable ones.

What's the Advantage of the NY Times Reader?

We really wanted to love the new updated New York Times Reader.

We downloaded the free Adobe Air software, fired it up, and click-flipped through the pages.

Yes, it looks nice -- the pages are certainly less cluttered and easier to read than those on NYTimes.com.

But it leaves us perplexed.

Except for a few free "trial" sections, you only get a teaser headline and first graf of every story; for the whole enchilada, you have to fork over $15/month. Yes -- a paid subscription. True, only about a quarter of the price of home delivery. But why bother when the whole thing is FREE on the Web?

Also, the Reader archives only a week's worth of issues, whereas the Website will search back to 1851!

Moreover, we experimented and found that the Website consistently updates its pages faster and more frequently than the Reader.

On the positive side: Unlike Amazon's touted Kindle portable e-reader, the New York Times Reader features full-color images (not just "16 shades of gray"). But then so does its Website. And, best of all, unlike the Kindle, the Reader plays video. But, again, so does its Website!

All we can figure is that, since the New York Times is partnering with Kindle to lure long-distance paid subscribers, its push to familiarize readers with its own proprietary Reader is perhaps the first step towards conditioning us to pay for content. As we all know by now, it's the proliferation of free content that's undermined the fiscal vitality of newspapers everywhere.

Is the Reader a step in the right direction? Will it work? It's certainly worth taking a look at. But, we hate to admit, we can't see any advantages that would make us pay for a subscription while we can still see all the newspaper's content -- faster and fresher -- on the Web.

(But, yeah, we're glad that it does include video -- a serious shortcoming of the Kindle.)

Here's a peek at the NYTimes.com homepage (top) and the NY Times Reader front page, captured at the exact same time. Click on them to see them full size.

Kindle DX to Rescue Journalism? Yawn...

OK, we just waded through reams of PR slop about the hotly anticipated new Kindle DX, to launch this summer -- revolutionary wireless blah blah, auto-rotate buh buh buh, built-in PDF yada yada, graphic-rich whatever -- and it all boils down to this.

No, there's no color (still "16 shades of gray"). No, there's no video (we must've been dreaming).

So why has Amazon been touting this third iteration of its portable book-reader as the potential rescuer of the newspaper and magazine industries? Here's your answer:


It's bigger. Seriously, that's it. Instead of 8" x 5.3", it's 10.4" x 7.2". The screen diagonal is 9.7" instead of 6", or 2.5 times the surface area. Still about a third of an inch thin -- which Amazon injudiciously compares to the thickness of a print magazine, apparently forgetting that the ad-starved mag industry is praying to fatten up again.

Oh, and it holds 3,500 books instead of merely 1,500. (Do you even know anyone who has that many songs on their iPod? Do the math, kids -- even if you voraciously read a book a week, it would take you seventy years to read 3,500 books. When's the last time you hung on to a piece of electronic equipment for seven decades?)

And the Kindle DX costs about a third more than the current model -- a whopping $489.

So how is this going to save journalism?

There are currently 37 newspapers and 28 magazines that offer Kindle subscriptions -- newspapers in the $6-11/month range, magazines in the $2-3/month range. No one's saying whether this has proven to be a meaningful revenue source. But we're willing to take a guess.

Will subscriptions skyrocket because of a larger viewing screen? Ask yourself -- are you more likely to purchase a Kindle because it's bigger? And is your purchasing decision going to be predicated on bookreading or newspaper/magazine reading? If you weren't already a subscriber, are you more likely to fork over nearly five hundred bucks so that you can become one?

Thought not.

There is one tiny ray of hope worth mentioning.

The New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post will offer the Kindle DX at a reduced price to readers who live in areas where home-delivery is not available and who sign up for a long-term subscription to the Kindle edition of the newspapers.

N.Y. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.:

"The wireless delivery and new value-added features of the Kindle DX will provide our large, loyal audience, no matter where they live, with an exciting new way to interact with The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Additionally, by offering a subscription through the Kindle DX to readers who live outside of our delivery areas, we will extend our reach to our loyal readers who will be able to more readily enjoy their favorite newspapers. Meanwhile, we are continuing to work with Amazon to make The New York Times and The Boston Globe experiences on Kindle better than ever."

Blah blah, yada yada, whatever.

We're waiting for the Apple cavalry to come thundering into town with its rumored tablet-sized iPhone thingamajig. Wake us then.

Can Kindle Rescue Newspapers & Magazines?

Will Kindle be able to rescue the newspaper and magazine industries, the way that iPod rescued the music industry?

We'll get an inkling this week when Amazon introduces a larger format version of its book-reader gadget that's designed to enable users to see their favorite publications exactly as they would have appeared on the printed page -- but without the print or the (paper) page.

(A number of periodical publishers, including Hearst magazines and the News Corporation, have announced that they've got their own proprietary e-reader devices in the works.)

Kindle's current six-inch black-and-white model offers paid subscriptions to about five dozen newspapers and magazines, but functionality is limited -- and certainly less than what you can get for free on each publication's own Website. (The Kindle itself cost a whopping $359.)

So we eagerly await this next-generation version to find out how Amazon plans to lure that endangered species known as "subscribers" to actually pay for what they've gotten used to receiving for free.

Still to be determined is whether Amazon's newest Kindle will enable viewers to enjoy the high quality videojournalism that print publications are increasingly producing -- and just about the only truly unique content that a publication can reasonably expect viewers to pay for.

What do you think? Can you imagine perusing your favorite newspapers and magazines on a 10-oz. wireless electronic screen that's the same size as a magazine page? Remember -- that one portable page can potentially "contain" all your favorite subscriptions, updated daily! What would it take for you to convert? Would video capability make a difference for you?