Blah, Blah, Blah….

Video clip from waxing poetic at Fipp Digital in Berlin last month. In a nutshell, care about everything a lot but don’t about any one thing too much.

 

Small Market Shifts

Random statistics from last month’s Nxtbook usage compared to February:

iPhone usage: Up 25%, though still well under 1% of all users

Twitter referrals to Nxtbooks: Up 26%

Facebook referrals to Nxtbook: Up 16%

Curious fact: Referrals from Google in March actually stayed inside the Nxtbook about 30% longer than referrals from Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps social media referrals aren’t as sticky as they were a year ago? We’ll keep an eye on this one.

Josh Gordon, Peter Houston Hit the Ball Out of the Park.

If you missed an awesome webinar with Josh Gordon and Peter Houston this week (due to it being held at 2pm BRITISH time), no worries. Here’s the link for the archive for the event, which was put on by Fipp.

Displacement Theory & the iPad

A very very insightful post looking at the displacement theory as it relates to the iPad.

In a nutshell, displacement theory says that if somebody chooses to spend time with the iPad, it means they’re going to have spend less time doing something else (until Steve Jobs figures out a way to package a 25 hour day in a shiny wrapper). What’s interesting about this is that for most people, the iPad probably won’t replace free time, because that horse left the barn a long time ago.

Instead, the iPad will replace time spent on other web browsing devices, like laptops and smartphones.

So how does this relate to digital magazines? Simple: readers of your content on the iPad, according to displacement theory, probably aren’t going to be new readers. Instead, they’ll be your same old readers coming to you on new devices. This means – as we’ve been saying for some time – you will need to be on these devices to keep your readers, but because these aren’t additional readers, you need to do it without spending gobs of extra cash. In short, if you’ve got a digital magazine, you need to make sure it can play on all of these devices without spending more money because it’s vital to maintain the readers you already have that are being displaced to other devices.

 

You’re Going to FOLIO, Right?

After running in fear from last year’s economic winter, we’re glad to see FOLIO’s back, and hopefully better than ever. What you can expect from Nxtbook at the show?… Well, I’d love to tell you, but that would spoil the surprise. Expect this: the most charming salespeople, the coolest giveaways, and the most amazing upgrades to our product. Oh yeah, and a guided running tour of New York City. Be there or be square, and use the promo code below to save a few bucks.

 

Webinar Reminder

Digital Magazine Success Stories: What Works, What Doesn’t, will be held next week. Starring Josh Gordon and Peter Houston, you’ll hear about Josh’s study and hear from a publisher with a few digital-optimized editions.

Keep in mind this one is being held at a convenient time for our European friends, so it’s 2pm UK time, 9am on the East Coast, etc. So kick back with a cup of coffee (or tea) and join us!

Some Digital Magazine Companies Don’t Think You Can Make Money With Your Digital Magazine

DISCLAIMER: In this post, I take issue with some comments made by one of our competitors. That being said, what we see is always determined by where we stand. I’m mentioning it because I think it shows a philosophical differences between our two organizations. If you’re a publisher, I’d suspect understanding the differences between vendors in the space would benefit you.

In a recent article at MINonline, an executive from one of our competitors discounted publishers’ ability to generate money from their digital magazines, saying, "We acknowledge that Web and digital editions have never been more than practical and useful tools that b2b publishers have used mainly as a cost savings." (emphasis added)

This, despite Josh Gordon’s recent study on digital magazines generating revenue and despite our numerous articles and webinars to the contrary. (Incidentally, when I spoke on this topic in London last month, a quick survey of the room showed the typical 40-50% of publishers saying they were making money with their digital magazine.)

Strangely, the quote was contained in an article referencing the company’s iPhone app. This despite the fact that research shows that only 5% of app users use an app after having it a month and that average CPMs on apps range from fifty cents to two dollars.

 

All of which goes to say that at Nxtbook we have plenty of publishers making money with their digital magazines and plenty of publishers who want to be on the iPhone but aren’t expecting to get rich off it. If you’re one of them, you should probably be talking to us. But if you think of a digital magazine as only a way to save money or an iPhone app as your ticket to the promised land, well maybe you should look elsewhere.

 

Buying a Nxtbook on Your Kindle

Wondering how to get your Nxtbook on the Amazon Kindle? View the simple video tutorial here.

Math Eludes Many Liberal Arts Majors

Strange article over at FOLIO saying that Sports Illustrated plans to hire four additional editors just to create a tablet SI. Favorite twitter response? @jeffdebalko "Makes as much sense as print only editors."

Jeff couldn’t be more right. Some publishers continue to think that the tablet platform OR the mobile OR the Kindle platform will yield huge results. The reality is that each of them will yield some results and you need the sum of those results to equal big results. Your best move: hedge your bets. Get on every device you can, as cheaply as you can.

MPA isn’t necessarily helping this concept, by offering a special page featuring publishers who now offer magazine apps. By acting like an app is the only way to get on these devices, they’re ignoring the hundreds of publishers (Nxtbook and others) that simply have iPhone or Android friendly versions of their product. If you get nothing else from this post, get this: YOU DON’T NEED AN APP TO BE ON THE IPHONE OR IPAD.

It seems like some publishers (who’ve been accused of "silo thinking" before) may be falling victim to the same thing, again. But the problem, these silos are smaller and will each yield lower profits. If not handled properly, some people could start losing money at a faster rate.

Want more proof? In this article, only 25% of people planning to buy the iPad say they want to download apps, while 36% say they won’t. Half of them, however, say they’d use it to surf the web. Truth is, the killer app. for the iPad is the web browser, and you don’t need to buy an app to be on it.

Neals Like Nxtbooks

I don’t know if that headline is exactly true, but the fact is that Nxtbook customers were well represented at last week’s Neal Awards. Congratulations to the following finalists and winners:

Finalist
"Trust Me, I’m a (Fake) Architect"
Architect
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"State of the Profession"
DVM Newsmagazine
Advanstar Inc.

Finalist
"Fully Vested"
Remodeling
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"Dialogue"
Architect
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"Turn, Turn, Turn: Torque Wrench Tech"
MOTOR Magazine
Hearst Business Media

Winner
"The Fuel Economy Solution? Gasoline Direct Injection"
MOTOR Magazine
Hearst Business Media

Finalist
"On the Grid"
Pool & Spa News
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"The Forgotten Feline"
Veterinary Economics
Advanstar Inc.

Winner
"Bargain Basements"
Builder
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"February 2009"
Incentive
Nielsen Business Media, Inc.

Finalist
"April 2009 Issue"
Architect
Hanley Wood, LLC

Winner
"July 2009 Issue"
DVM Newsmagazine
Advanstar Inc

Finalist
"August 24, 2009 Issue"
Business Travel News
Nielsen Business Media, Inc.

Winner
"dvm360.com"
DVM Newsmagazine
Advanstar Inc.

Finalist
"Ecohomemagazine.com"
EcoHome
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"EcoHome Update"
EcoHome
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"Scholastic Administr@tor Video"
Scholastic Administr@tor
Scholastic, Inc.

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