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March 12, 2010#

A More Realistic View of Publishing on the iPad?

We’ve looked at a variety of iPad demos recently and while the potential is exciting, the reality of what publishers produce may be a little more pedestrian.

Ducth paper De Telegraaf released the video above which suggests they plan to repurpose their website for the iPad. This makes some sense and if probably more realistic for many publishers in a time of restricted budgets and staff cuts.

That said, simply bringing video, audio and animated graphics into a magazine/newspaper format could make for an interesting product.

Personally, I think that there’s enormous potential for independent publishers and businesses to put these new tools to use – banishing staid catalogues and boring whitepapers.

What do you think?

January 4, 2010#

The Mobile Future of Digital Magazines?

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

So far digital magazine formats have by and large sought to replicate the experience of the printed format, reproducing printed versions complete with ‘flippy’ pages.

A few notable examples have gone further in making impressive use of video, audio and better layouts to maximise the potential of the digital magazine – but even these efforts will likely be seen as stepping stones towards more natively digital and mobile offerings to come.

Indeed, publications like Sports Illustrated [video] and Wired [video] have recently unveiled their respective conceptualisations with a clear focus on new hardware like e-readers, smart mobiles and tablets.

In a similar vein (see video above), design consultancy BERG and media company Bonnier have released what they call ‘a corporate collaborative research project … into the experience of reading magazines on handheld digital devices. It illustrates one possible vision for digital magazines in the near future …’.

Apart from looking very cool indeed BERG/Bonnier’s future retains the concept of magazine issues (as opposed to constantly updated RSS-style feeds) and (thankfully) does away with the flippy pages.

If you’re feeling impatient, skip to minute 3 for an idea of their concepts in action.