The iTablet Newspaper.

✎ Published: 2009-11-09 10:30:30

Apple's potential entry into the newspaper market with the iTablet could address the ongoing crisis in journalism, marked by declining sales and quality. By applying lessons from the success of iTunes, such as user-friendly design and fast access to content, Apple could create a platform that redefines how news is consumed, offering a path for journalism's survival.

The iTablet Newspaper.

In my last post I noted the possibility of Apple entering the newspaper market via its iTablet in order to help journalism accustom to modern times (or, as someone else wrote: 'Pull it kicking and screaming into the future'). There's no doubt that the newspaper business, or rather journalism, is in dire need for a concept which establishes it in the internet-centered society looming upon us. Newspaper sales been dropping year over year, which leads to journalists being fired, which leads to a loss in quality, which leads to less sales, which leads to less advertising, which leads to a higher prices – and that one leads to less sales, again. What we can see in this simple example is the rather inevitable crisis of classic paper-based newspaper journalism. The cause of this hideous process is (among other factors) the fact that news can be consumed for free on the Internet. However, since people reading news on the Internet tend to ignore the accompanied advertising, the shift from paper to web doesn't make up for the loss of their paper counterparts (and not even for the production costs). Countless CEO's, consultants, and scientists have tried to come up with a solution for this conundrum. People want to consume news, but do not want to pay (much) for it. Solutions ranged from micropayments (pay 1pence per article – didn't work), to government-financed journalism (a rather dangerous thought given the importance of journalism as the fourth power in a democracy). So, why should a new hardware product from Apple offer any kind of solution to this problem, which has already been discussed on a grand scale?

Let's move back, for a minute, and consider the state of the music industry, ca. 2001. Napster had moved the task of finding, downloading, and sharing digital mp3 music from the realm of hackers and nerds to the broad public. Suddenly everyone was able to get music in an instant. For free. For years to come, the music industry, and its legal companion, the RIAA, tried everything imaginable to hinder mp3 music sharing, and lecture (or even force) people to buy expensive CD's or download incompatible music instead. As indicated, by this quote from Jimmy Lovine – Founder and chairman, Interscope Records, it wasn't until the advent of the iTunes & iPod behemoth, that the market of legal digital music exploded. By now, iTunes has surpassed CD sales and is the worldwide major music distribution platform.

How did Apple achieve this? First of all, there seemed to be a latent demand for legal digital music. People oftentimes claimed that they'd buy music in an instant, if it was available in something other than the arcane CD format. It was, however, possible to buy digital music online before the iTunes Music Store came along, a fact that diminishes the strength of the 'legal music' argument. Another important reason was of course the combination of iPod, iTunes, and iTunes Music Store. While previous approaches to selling music online were limited & rather unknown, the widespread success of the iPod brought access to millions of potential customers. Finally, there's an often-overlooked but very important reason: The ease and comfort of Apple's solution.

Napster reached such a wide audience not only because of the simplicity of the task, but also because the availability of of music. One could enter an artists name, find tons of related (or unrelated) tracks, and download them with a click. But Napster also had a ton of problems: Many tracks weren't available at all, it was nearly impossible to get complete albums – mostly only a small selection of tracks, the files were not always in good quality, and almost every download took ages because the sharing party was accessing the Internet by modem. Whereas iTunes brought best-of lists, fast downloads, high quality files, cover art, a big database of content (except for the Beatles), complete albums, reviews, and much more. And best of all, it was only one click away from the regular iTunes music experience. I'm fairly confident, that the superior success of the iTunes Music Store lends itself a big deal on the usability of Apple's solution.

So, going back to the future (or rather lack thereof) of journalism, how can we apply the merits of the digital music solution to newspapers? Since news is already free on the Internet, this market lacks a significant demand for 'legal' news. However, as explained above, this wasn't a big deal for digital music either. The difference is actually marginal: Before iTunes, people could buy digital music, but illegally downloaded free stuff instead. After iTunes people could still buy digital music, but did download far less illegal music. Now, people can buy paper news, but they access free, digital news instead. If Apple really was to try to reinvent the newspaper, it would need to offer a seriously simplified, less cumbersome, very usable interface. But is this possible? Online newspapers have been evolving for years, the NY Times employs a constantly growing team of web developers to optimize it's site. These sites still follow a model that lends its basics from the classic newspaper. A frontpage, departments, current articles in chronological order, features, and a ton of adds. These simple thoughts establish a basic framework which allows to draft a set of requirements for a device that could establish itself as a news platform:

  • The perfect size: It certainly has to be bigger than an iPhone. It needs space for a splendid layout, big fonts, high quality pictures, and a general feeling of comfort. However, it shouldn't be so big as to be considered clunky.
  • The layout: Visit <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/2>USA Today for a moment. Perplexed? The classic newspaper had a slightly colorful front page, with a teaser image, votes, polls, and an introduction into the contents of the paper, but the articles themselves were clear, plain, freed from distractions. Todays online newspapers are ripe with distractions. Links to blogs, newsletters, similar articles, advertising, photo galleries, comments, digg buttons, print buttons, and more. Apple needs to establish a plain and beautiful layout, hiding complexity in menus or even through omitting the features altogether. They're really good at this kind of thing.
  • Move away from an article-based view. When reading a classic newspaper, we browse, skim, and skip. Even when we're looking for a specific article, we might stumble upon the one or other interesting tidbit that educates or entertains us. Actually, a recent study by Marcinkowski (still in print) found that (albeit for TV) most political information is being acquired 'accidentally' while people were waiting for an entertainment program to come up. For newspapers, this could mean that a great deal of the publics political knowledge comes from browsing or skimming the newspaper. Article based views offer 'recommendation' content, but this deepens instead of widening the knowledge. So the Apple device would need a clever way to give people a luxury article mode, with big fonts and clear structure, while also somehow embedding an easy access to the rest of the articles.
  • Speed: Google and Amazon have invested many resources testing the importance of the speed of a website. The result was that even a fraction of a second in delay causes people to stop and leave. I personally feel that most news sites are too slow. Upon clicking a link, first the HTTP request has to go through, the HTML has to arrive, the browser renders it, loads a bulk of additional images, these resize the layout 3x-4x times, then three Adobe Flash embeds start loading, cause the browser to pause for a moment, and finally the page has been loaded. This process can take up 1-3 seconds. That there is a relation between consumption and speed, especially for news, can be seen with one of the newer Google experiments (Google FastFlip), which introduces a blazingly fast way to read news. Instead of html content, the site serves screenshots of news sites. I'm hardly convinced that Apple will not use WebKit for the iTablet newspapers, but that's not the point: They just need to find a way to make the browsing and loading of articles incredibly fast.

When I applied the probable factors of success of the iTunes Music Store onto journalism, I left one factor out: The giant userbase of the iPod. The Music Store not only did benefit but wouldn't have been possible at all without the already available incredible amount of iPod owners. The iTablet, on the other hand, isn't even on the market yet. So, in comparison to the iPod, where the physical product helped sell the digital content, with the iTablet the digital content would need to help sell the physical product. I imagine newspaper access to be one of Apple's arguments for the iTablet. While this certainly limits the applicability of the thoughts above, the App Store has shown that even a new content platform can quickly become a selling argument.

If only a bit of these thoughts apply, it would be a chance for journalism. The iTablet scenario won't help solve many of its inherent problems, like bias, uneven news distribution, or the rise of entertainment, but it might at least help journalism to stay alive – maybe until a conclusive 'future of news' has been found. Because weblogs, social news, or Twitter cannot replace journalism.