Discover your next stop in the tablet road

Last year, the International E-reading & Tablet Conference was very much asking questions: how will the people use tablets, will they keep using Kindle-like e-readers and how many nightmares will tablet publishing create in the production and CRM workflow? But there were very little experimentations to show.

It is really this year that we can tackle the interesting topics of creativity, patterns of usage and even touch on the reality of a business future. 

Use Twitter hash tag: #tablet11

Programme

9.00 Coffee and registration

10.00 Session 1 – The first movers

Welcome by the moderator

Dr Kristina Sabelström Möller, Senior Research Manager, Emerging Digital Platforms and Business Development, WAN-IFRA GmbH & Co. KG, Germany

The Daily – following the progresses of the first iPad-only newspaper

Media historians will probably make a big deal out of 2 February 2011, the day the first newspaper created exclusively for the iPad appeared. In July, The Daily launched a redesign based on the feedback from its users. This unique newspaper considers itself as “a work-in-progress”, proving the technology, refining the content and investigating the best marketing methods. The Daily is actually one of the most downloaded news apps.

Rebecca Grossman-Cohen, Director of Marketing, The Daily, USA

Bonnier – definitely the most active publisher on tablets

International publisher Bonnier is transposing most of its publication to tablets at a very fast pace. It started as soon as the iPad was released in the US with itsPopular Science app. On June 12 2011, Bonnier Magazines launched its first digital-only weekly magazine - C Mode. The new magazine provides a fast and up-to-date review of the fashion world while giving readers the opportunity to shop whenever and wherever they are. Bonnier is as active on the newspaper publishing side and on November 24 2010 they launched News+ – a daily newspaper platform for tablets that connect to Adobe's services. The goal is not a printed version in digital format and not a news site but instead a third product that picks up where the print newspaper leaves off. Being at the vanguard of this digital trend has also meant for the company investing in research to understand better reading and advertising on those new devices.

The next step for Bonnier is now Service+ – a project focusing on sales of digital products.

Pontus Schultz, Head of business development Bonnier R&D, Sweden

11.30 Coffee break

11.50 Session 2 – Publishing on international basis

Creating the right tablet products for your business

In August, the monthly lifestyle title BBC Good Food announced that it would offer its iPad app, launched in February, as a digital-only subscription for the first time and that people subscribing outside the App Store would get it at a better deal. The Good Food iPad app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times since its launch. The magazine is only one title in a rich portfolio of publications (including titles like Top Gear, Lonely Planet, Radio Times). "BBC Magazines operates one of the most successful subscription businesses in the industry and we are now able to tap into that expertise for our digital products".

Rebekah Billingsley, Publishing Director - Mobile Devices, BBC Worldwide, UK

Free newspaper Metro goes on tablets – its own way 

Mobile devices could change drastically the future of free newspapers and Metro International is aware of that. Metro is a very popular newspaper brand operating 65 editions in 21 countries (37 million readers per week). And most interesting, 66% of Metro readers are aged 18-39 years old. Just imagine how profitable its publishing business would be without the burden of production and distributions costs. Too early for many countries where the brand is active, but already time to provide its iPad equipped readers with this choice. Metro has as usual taken its own route with the launch this September of an HTLM5-based iPad app.

Peter Holmlund, Executive Vice President & Online Director, Metro International, Sweden

13.00 Lunch

14.00 Session 3 – Alternative ways for big and small players

Browser & App: Die Zeit and Zeit Online want both!

Die Zeit and Zeit Online are following a product-centric approach towards the market for tablet PCs. The goal is to increase digital circulation revenues as well as to take advantage of tablets as an attractive device for the advertising industry. The publisher has chosen a technical approach to developing an optimised Zeit Online HTML5 tablet version. Using HTML5 offers the advantage of being easily transferable from a native iPad app to a platform-independent product for a cost effective distribution on all tablet devices such as are already available or scheduled to be launched on the market.

Christian Röpke, CEO, Zeit Online, Germany

The Sunday Times on iPad shows that, yes, tablet numbers do stack up

The Times and The Sunday Times now have over 100,000 current, monthly digital subscribers, an increase of 28% since the last official figures in February (79,000 digital subscribers). This includes subscribers to all digital channels: the websites, the iPad and the Kindle. The Times is downloaded onto an average of 35,000 iPads every day, an increase of 40% in the four months since February. The average for The Sunday Times is 31,000, an increase of 41%. This presentation of The Sunday Times case shows how News International's strategy of paid for content makes sense.

Simon Regan-Edwards, Production Director, The Sunday Times, UK

Yudu Media wants a self-ruled tablet ecosystem

Yudu has been in the news these last months for definitive statements such as the death of the Kindle: "2011 may well be considered as the beginning of the end for the dedicated e-book reader " (Richard Stephenson, June 2011). For pushing Apple to the limits of its logic with the "Dual Subscriptions System" announcement: an alternative route to the iPad market for publishers (May 2011). And also for victorious figures announced on September 1 that “it has surpassed the 100th iPad App milestone, and that in fact its 125th custom-branded iPad App has gone live in the App Store”.

Richard Stephenson, CEO, Yudu, UK

15.40 Coffee break

16.00 cont. Session 3 - Alternative ways for big and small players

 The Telegraph on iPad – 2.0: let the show start!

If the first version of The Telegraph on iPad was a good rehearsal for its editorial ambitions on tablets, the second version, launched in May, really explores the full possibilities of the device. The updated app features a 30-day archive, night reading mode and greater depth of content, including video, graphics and picture galleries created for the iPad edition and cartoon archives. And it comes with a well thought-out pricing plan, for the readers and the publisher. 

Nic Newman, Managing  Director EMEA, TigerSpike, UK 

Grupo L’Espresso finds a balance between innovation and tradition

In 2010, Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso became the first Italian publishing company to appear on tablets, with its well-known brands Repubblica and L’Espresso, and the local Finegil daily newspapers. In December 2010, the group launched a specially created publishing project for this device: R7 – a highly successful Sunday magazine designed solely for tablets, offering readers the best of Repubblica, but redesigned with a new layout in an original multimedia format, with video analyses, and interactive photographic and infographic reportages. A version 2.0 of the L’Espresso application was launched mid-2011. The new formula, which has been specially designed for the iPad, makes it easier to move between the articles, photo galleries, boxes, and all the other content of the newsmagazine. Those who prefer the traditional format, which is the same as the printed version, can simply decide not to change when they read their copy on the iPad.

Theo Nelki, Creative Director, Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso, Italy

Don't aim at a niche when you can have reach

The core effort should be put into the content, created and distributed as easy as possible. And the goal is to do be present on every available platform. This is critical to obtain a broad user group that gives sustainable income and finances journalism in the future. The iPad is great. But it is a niche. And it will stay this way. For this reason, the Nordlys app for the iPad is developed as an HTML5 container to be used also for other services and ePaper-solutions.

Anders Opdahl, Editor-in-Chief, Bladet Nordlys, Norway

Wrap-up and final comments

18.00 End of the program of the 4th International E-reading & Tablet Conference