Feed-based Magazines (without Magazines)
In its brief existence, the iPad has given rise to a new kind of app that looks and feels very much like a magazine but leverages free streams — RSS, Twitter and Facebook shared content. Pulse ($3.99) was created by Stanford grads and highlighted by Steve Jobs and immediately drew the ire of publishers. Flipboard (Free), which launched to a flurry of press, calls itself “your personalized, social magazine.” Instapaper for iPad ($4.99) is a close cousin — similar, but not as flashy.
These new magazine-like formats are visually interesting and more attractive, leveraging (scraping?) graphics much more heavily than a typical RSS feed reader. They strip out all of the clutter — including advertising, Google text ads, cross content promotion, and social and sharing features. To avoid publishers crying foul, they link prominently to web versions of articles. Each is a work in progress. Flipboard looks the best. Pulse has mastered sharing. Instapaper is the most utilitarian.
These executions emphasize what’s been missing in current magazine iPad app executions — aggregation, easy subscription (available through RSS), social/sharing, customization and simplicity. They also highlight the tough choice publishers must make between the open web and the app store. Publishers can’t put all of their content for free in RSS and on the web AND charge iPad users for it. They must choose.
It’s ironic that iPad users seem anxious to embrace a magazine-like experience online and this enthusiasm may provide little or no benefit to magazine business models.
Update 9/10: Twitter has released an iPad app that contains a second panel that shows the content from the links shared in the tweet stream. It’s a Twitter reader and while I find the UI clunky, it demonstrates the depth of the content being shared on the service (and gives Flipboards Twitter execution a run for its money). Kudos to the Twitteam for getting this into the market so quickly.
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