Condé Nast pulling back on iPad magazines

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Condé Nast pulling back on iPad magazines

Condé Nast is pulling back on its goal to deliver iPad versions of all of its magazines, according to an AdAge report. Citing anonymous company employees, the report claims that the change in strategy is due to lower sale volumes than are optimal for attracting advertisers. The report states that the company is still committed to the iPad as a platform, and has another undisclosed iPad edition of one of its magazines arriving in May. “It’s a shift,” one Condé publisher said. “The official stance was we’re going to get all our magazines on the iPad because this is going to be such an important stream. The new change is maybe we can slow it down. In my opinion it makes Condé look smart because we have the ambition, but we’re not rushing. They’re not all doing all that well, so why rush to get them all on there?” The company was one of the earliest supporters of the iPad, announcing prior to the iPad’s launch its intentions to bring out iPad editions of Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, Glamour, and The New Yorker. [via Mac Rumors]

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Comments

1

I don’t see how this makes them look smart. Even if you don’t fully capitalize on everything an iPad version of your magazine can potentially offer, simply getting e-print versions out there is something that simply has to be done.

We can debate all day which is the chicken and which is the egg in this scenario, but you’re not going to get the audience numbers with no product, and like a lot of transitions, you’re probably going to have run e-print periodicals at a loss for some period of time anyhow. Considering that the way the print business works you can get some form of e-print out there for free, how hard can it be to start offering *something* across the board?

This is like the ##### TV execs who put out iPad only viewing apps when retina iPhones and touches are already higher res than their product to begin with. There’s some fundamental disconnect between the mindsets of these executives who, unfortunately, make the choices and people out there who could very well be making the money if they’d remove their heads from their behinds.

Get the product out there to as many potential consumers as possible and adjust your monetization and added value after to consumer interest, but for Pete’s sake, get something out there instead of all this pansy toe dragging waiting on faeries to bring paying customers to you out of the aether - it’s not going to happen.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on April 22, 2011 at 1:27 PM (PST)

2

I can certainly understand why an allegedly tech-forward magazine like “Wired” would want to take a wait and see attitude before jumping in with both feet in support of a media delivery platform that sold 6M units and would have sold more if they had been able to build them.

Posted by fairfieldwizard on April 25, 2011 at 12:54 PM (PST)

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