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"Has a viable new medium emerged yet? Who's getting it most right, or least wrong, at the moment?
JL: There are plenty of interesting experiments but no clear direction. Digitally, the iPad has shown potential but little true definition of what might come next. It hints at how curated content might be better presented than it has been on free-for-all websites. The iPad social network aggregator FlipBoard is an excellent example of how material could be presented using algorithmic design to take raw words and lift them beyond a mere list. Some of the blog apps are interesting: Mashable, Coolhunting. Pulse News is another interesting app to watch. But there's also the business side. A key development will be how publishers manage to link print and apps.
JJ: Making our editorial content available on key platforms means we can be sure we are reaching as big an audience as possible. Just as there are several strong British and American news websites, there are several strong iPhone and iPad apps in the news category. It is no concidence that they have been developed on the whole by the blue-chip publishers on the US east coast and in London.
JLW: Who knows, but if we sit around waiting for the perfect medium, we'll never progress at all. Everyone who has made a start deserves a pat on the back, but it's probably the companies with the deepest pockets that are going to make the biggest advances and the biggest mistakes. It may get even more interesting when the smaller guys get involved.
Where do the iPad and similar tablets fit in with that? Are they the answer?
JL: They are only the latest step to what's next. They are excellent devices for enjoying video and browsing the web but have yet to definitively prove themselves as a workable home for magazine-type content.
JJ: The iPad is a fabulous piece of kit and still in its infancy; that is perhaps the most exciting aspect of it. Version one offers stunning opportunities for publishers and consumers alike, but what about versions two, three, four. . .? The iPad is just one way forward — and not the answer — for publishers as they adapt and progress in the fast-changing digital marketplace.
JLW: If tablets become as ubiquitous as the radio became in the Twenties and Thirties, so that even poor people have access to one somewhere, we may see a big change. There may be unintended consequences: Hitler, for example, wouldn't have been so effective without radio, nor would Bing Crosby."
read full post on the telegraph.co.uk
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