How to be content producers in the world of iSlate?
Arnon Mishkin is a partner in the Mitchell Madison Group , where he advises on improving business using the Internet and achieving profitability in the network. Previously, he was a partner in the Boston Consulting Group, where he was engaged in the company's first projects on the world wide web.
Most content creators ( who once considered themselves kings ) are waiting for Apple's iSlate tablet to appear next week, presumably. Indeed, there has not been such an agonizing wait since the flood, and perhaps even earlier times, because this time the former slaves ignore the golden calf, i.e. Steve Ballmer with his Window's tablet. For some reason it seems to me that this optimism is justified. The iPhone and, probably, iSlate, called “the iPhone on steroids”, will most likely allow companies to create full-fledged applications, rather than just readable (and therefore disposable in fact) web pages.
Moreover, since Apple seeks to use new approaches to existing technologies that change not only the business they are directly involved in, but also the areas adjacent to it, it is highly likely that Apple will find an innovative way to leap over existing products. The iPod turned the rules of the music business, the iPhone determined the mobile web. iSlate will be made and promoted so at such a price that it will create an app market for iSlate apps, just like Apple created the iTunes market for iPod and iPhone. Rest assured, iSlate, unlike other e-readers, will expand the nascent market for mobile content devices.
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But in the coming years, content producers and audience aggregators should be careful in their dealings with e-readers, otherwise everything will turn into a simple making money for Apple, just like Kindle sales have become a gold bottom for Amazon. With the launch of iSlate, Apple and its iTunes store can truly become a collection point for network content that delivers music, apps, the press, and cinema to the dominant media players in the market.
For the music industry, the emergence of such a collection point began to mean the death of its business model. iTunes has selected a significant amount of recordings for consumers who already did not consume pirated products, thereby reducing the significance and profitability of the recording companies. Amazon (with its Kindle) and Barnes & Noble (with its Nook) have the potential to reduce the importance of publishing companies and can hack them in the bud by starting to enter into contracts directly with the authors.
However, collection points do not always destroy the industry. Sometimes they put things in order. In the mid-1980s, cable operators turned into such a very effective collection point between content producers / cable networks and their subscribers, who began to pay a monthly fee for better signal quality and a number of products available only on cable TV.
Initially, most cable networks offered their programs for free. Content was king. The audience began to connect to the cable. And investors believed that advertisers poured into cable TV because it was easier to identify the target audience. But it quickly became clear that cable TV did not become profitable through advertising alone. As in our day, no one felt obliged to pay for CNN or ESPN. Then the studios gathered spirit and went to the operators in the face of John Malone (John Malone), saying that if they do not share part of the monthly fee, then they go out of business.
Malon, better known for his wonderful ability to receive controlling stakes in cable networks that he programmed than for his spontaneous generosity, did not want to agree. As for the CNN case, he personally convinced NBC to start planning its own cable network in order to get a bargaining chip in negotiations with Ted Turner (Ted Turner). But in the end, the operators agreed to pay creators and aggregators for content.
Of course, it is still too early to say whether Apple will become such a gathering point, and it’s too early to talk about what kind of blow will be delivered to content producers. But today they should seriously think, not just experiment, about how they will build relationships with iSlate and many other existing and so far only announced electronic readers.
Among the most important questions that should be considered are the following:
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See also: What to expect from iTunes for magazines?
Most content creators ( who once considered themselves kings ) are waiting for Apple's iSlate tablet to appear next week, presumably. Indeed, there has not been such an agonizing wait since the flood, and perhaps even earlier times, because this time the former slaves ignore the golden calf, i.e. Steve Ballmer with his Window's tablet. For some reason it seems to me that this optimism is justified. The iPhone and, probably, iSlate, called “the iPhone on steroids”, will most likely allow companies to create full-fledged applications, rather than just readable (and therefore disposable in fact) web pages.
Moreover, since Apple seeks to use new approaches to existing technologies that change not only the business they are directly involved in, but also the areas adjacent to it, it is highly likely that Apple will find an innovative way to leap over existing products. The iPod turned the rules of the music business, the iPhone determined the mobile web. iSlate will be made and promoted so at such a price that it will create an app market for iSlate apps, just like Apple created the iTunes market for iPod and iPhone. Rest assured, iSlate, unlike other e-readers, will expand the nascent market for mobile content devices.
')
But in the coming years, content producers and audience aggregators should be careful in their dealings with e-readers, otherwise everything will turn into a simple making money for Apple, just like Kindle sales have become a gold bottom for Amazon. With the launch of iSlate, Apple and its iTunes store can truly become a collection point for network content that delivers music, apps, the press, and cinema to the dominant media players in the market.
For the music industry, the emergence of such a collection point began to mean the death of its business model. iTunes has selected a significant amount of recordings for consumers who already did not consume pirated products, thereby reducing the significance and profitability of the recording companies. Amazon (with its Kindle) and Barnes & Noble (with its Nook) have the potential to reduce the importance of publishing companies and can hack them in the bud by starting to enter into contracts directly with the authors.
However, collection points do not always destroy the industry. Sometimes they put things in order. In the mid-1980s, cable operators turned into such a very effective collection point between content producers / cable networks and their subscribers, who began to pay a monthly fee for better signal quality and a number of products available only on cable TV.
Initially, most cable networks offered their programs for free. Content was king. The audience began to connect to the cable. And investors believed that advertisers poured into cable TV because it was easier to identify the target audience. But it quickly became clear that cable TV did not become profitable through advertising alone. As in our day, no one felt obliged to pay for CNN or ESPN. Then the studios gathered spirit and went to the operators in the face of John Malone (John Malone), saying that if they do not share part of the monthly fee, then they go out of business.
Malon, better known for his wonderful ability to receive controlling stakes in cable networks that he programmed than for his spontaneous generosity, did not want to agree. As for the CNN case, he personally convinced NBC to start planning its own cable network in order to get a bargaining chip in negotiations with Ted Turner (Ted Turner). But in the end, the operators agreed to pay creators and aggregators for content.
Of course, it is still too early to say whether Apple will become such a gathering point, and it’s too early to talk about what kind of blow will be delivered to content producers. But today they should seriously think, not just experiment, about how they will build relationships with iSlate and many other existing and so far only announced electronic readers.
Among the most important questions that should be considered are the following:
- What is the difference between the needs and desires of your paper customers from digital?
- How do your plans for the tablet fit in with your overall strategy for the digital platform?
- What does your brand (s) mean in the tablet world, and how can you increase the value of your brand through content packages, rather than individual pieces of it? For example, for the magazine business, in order to avoid the fate of music studios, you need to decide how to preserve the value of the magazine as a whole, and not break into separate articles. In other industries, companies need to decide what will be the maximum benefit of their brand: in the organization of their existing web products? in creating a new, more segmented product? And anyway, is there any point in selling through a consortium of larger publishers?
- What value do you represent for a company selling a tablet, and how do you approach licensing your products for it?
- Is it worth it and how to participate in a consortium of publishers? Are you participating to make your consortium the strongest, or to gain superiority in negotiations with tablet companies?
- How to use your sites where your content is available for free, so that sales on tablet computers do not suffer from this?
- How to promote tablet products so as not to be tied to one platform?
- How to determine that the market is not the only company is a collection point? And if this happens, how is it better to build a relationship?
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See also: What to expect from iTunes for magazines?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/287654/
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