Back to thinking about advertising.
In this post I will ellaborate on an idea I mentioned here.
I subscribe to exactly two magazines. Wired and Time. If I were to subcribe to a third, I'd probably go with Popular Mechanics. Ask me about a fourth and a fifth, and I might not know what to say. I'm a man of many interests, but few of those interests are expressed in a desire to subscribe to a magazine on the subject. Instead, the internet is all I need. Or is that the only way the magazine market, as it currently exists, allows me to think?
Perhaps there are dozens of magazines that, if I had them within reach, I'd give them a meaningful share of my time. Biblical Archeological Review, New Scientist, the Economist, Kitplanes, Backpacker, Cinefex... oh, the list could be really very long, if I were willing to shell out. I'm casually, and perhaps convertibly, interested in plenty of magazines. I'm not willing to pay any amount of money for 100% of what I can get a reasonable 30 or 40% for free elsewhere. Or at least feel that I am. In reality, I know there's no replacement for paid writing.
Unfortunately, there are more and more people that feel this way. Many venerable, once-essential magazines are gradually dying off. New magazines arise only by appealing to a broad, shallow interest. Perhaps correlationally, just as the technology for reaching any conceivable microniche is coming into its own, the previous technology (print) is flattening into grocery store subjects (decorating, fashion, hot rods, guns, and body building).
I could go on and on about the problem. I could expound at length on how we got here. But I'm ready to talk about the solution.
E-readers, like Kindle, are being designed wrong in that they ignore one of the most important ways that writers get paid- not through royalties, but through ad revunue. They are designed for books.
So I'm about to describe the e-reader of the future. The one that saves the magazine industry from inevitalbe information age demise.
The next e-reader must have two screens, preferably a dual-mode, two-layer display: low energy epaper and color OLCD. One page for text, one for a full-page ad that is present while you read the text. Color is essential for simulating a vast number of books, not just magazines. A dual-mode display would vastly broaden the available book market at the same time. Textbooks require color. E-readers for children must have color. A two-page spread is essential for some kinds of information, some kinds of illustrations.
It will cost more, but that's of no concern. A two-screen, dual-mode e-reader can can be sold for close-to, or less than cost as long as a profit sharing arrangement exists in which advertising revenue is added to lost profits. And the potential revenue is enormous.
Advertising on such devices should be subject to a voluntary feedback model like the one I described in an earlier post. People appreciate the ads in magazines. Don't feel shy about putting ads in front of people- as long as those ads are for things your readers are interested in.
New e-readers should always have wireless capability, netbook capabilities, but must be usable far from any available network. They should operate in a low-power, black-and-white mode. If you are interested in an ad, you simply tap it to see the full-color version. Ads should be allowed to animate, or force you to see full color, only during the first few seconds after "turning the page." I mean one to three seconds max. Constantly moving ads are annoying and distracting. You should be able to click on an ad- all the way through to a purchase decision- without losing your place in the article you're reading. The ad page is also a browser, or an Adobe AIR interactive document, or an order form.
Naturally, this dual-screen e-reader should fold. You should be able to fold it closed, to protect the screen and hide what's inside, or fold it open, so that it can be read one-handed. The button for turning to the next page should be only on the right side. Turning back, only on the left. That way, you must look at both pages before you can advance.
Not every page of text would be opposite an ad. Sometimes you would have two-pages of text, or a two-page illustration. Sometimes you'd have two-page ads. It should balance out.
Instead of flipping through a magazine, you could have a visual table-of-contents. Each page of the magazine, including the ads, would be visible in miniature on a page that is cached for fast accessibility at all times. The ad page could be used for this. It is good to encourage the reader to interact with the ad page (which would, most often, be the right hand page). The reader should feel good about the ad page.
You'd still pay for subscriptions. But you'd pay a lot less than you do now. No paper, printing, mailing, or mail-based subscription service charges. More timely, targeted ads. Transparent, instant feedback. In fact, some magazines could be distributed free to the consumer.
You could also have an ad-royalty model in which writers get paid a bonus for the revenue generated by the ads that accompanied their writing.
Magazines themselves would become more sophisticated. There is no reason you couldn't have interactive flash illustrations, embedded video, or links directly to related material built into the magazine articles of the future. The same is true of books.
The window of opportunity is rapidly closing. The chance to employ the existing two-page magazine model will not always be available. We will outgrow it. There is already a well established alternative model- the internet advertising model (banners, sidebars, embedded text ads)- to compete with.
How would google feel about controling the print advertising market as well? I imagine they'd be willing to invest in the technology that allowed them to do that.
As a consumer, reader, and technology user, wouldn't you rather have a dual-screen solution?
As a magazine publisher, wouldn't you rather not die?
As an advertiser, wouldn't you rather have a full page ad instead of a sidebar, or a banner?
E-readers need to evolve in this single, essential, non-negotiable way. Once they do, all previous e-reader innovations will become instantly obsolete.
As a technology designer, wouldn't you rather make a sale than a footnote to history?
1 comment:
Asus Gets it.
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