Fipp Digital Innovators’ Summit Review

As we wrap up the Fipp Digital Conference, here’s a list of notes and observations from Berlin:

1.) I really like Ben Edwards’ philosophy at the Economist. The Economist – if you didn’t know – has a digital edition, and a Kindle edition and an iPhone edition. (Frankly, if they worked with us, we’d give them all 3, but I digress.) Anyhow, they believe that eventually they may optimize content for the devices, but for now, their defensive strategy is to get on every device they can and see which ones are successful enough to justify improving upon the format.

2) The average CPM in Europe is 7 euros.

3) I remember how all the digital conferences three years ago were all about websites, websites, websites. Nobody wanted to talk about digital magazines. Now, they’re all about digital magazines and mobile. Funny how things change.

4) At last week’s Pub Expo in London, the iPad talk was completely rabid. At Fipp, the sizzle is still bigger than the steak, but the attitude is a bit more rational. Curiously, the Kindle was barely mentioned at Pub Expo, but came up periodically at Fipp.

5) People at Fipp were very excited to see Josh Gordon will be presenting the results of his study at a Fipp/Nxtbook Webinar on March 30. You should join us by going here.

6) Prescott Shibles from eMedia Vitals asks a lot of questions. But given his profession, that’s probably a good thing.

7) Laura Imkamp is another up and coming journalist dedicated to this space who is the type of multi-media specialist that Paul Conley says you need to hire today. Tony Silber or one of his competitors should get her an assignment ASAP.

The highlight for me was seeing a presentation by Bjorn Jeffery, one of the major architects of the much discussed Bonnier video. Bjorn discussed 5 of the 10 design conclusions his team applied in the final concept. We hope to discuss them more in a future post.

9) Demand Media had a speaker at the show. If you don’t remember them, they’re the guys that Tony Silber wants to go to hell. They gave a dynamite presentation and you had the feeling publishers were planning on replicating their model, right up about to the point where the guy said they pay $15 per story (after the question being asked a few times). Curious to see if they’ll be invited back again.

10) All in all, it’s another good event from Fipp. They continue to produce events that – in my opinion – are not as good as FOLIO’s best stuff but quite a bit better than many of the US shows.