It's official, skeuomorphic design is out: retailer Target redesigns its catalog app ahead of iOS 7 update

Target today issued a major update to its Target for iPad app which brings its advertising circulars directly to its retail customers (without the need for newspapers, I might add).

Version 2.0 is brings a new navigation panel, redesigned home screen and the like. It also throws out its skeuomorphic design for something cleaner and more in tune with the prevailing design trends. Whether you will like the new look will all depend on whether you still love Apple's iCalendar look, or have moved on to the more austere look of what many expect Apple's iOS 7 will look like once unveiled (and probably previewed soon at WWDC).

Leaving aside design issues, though, Targets iPad app remain mostly about bringing the weekly circular directly to customers. In essence, the digital version is a replica edition of what one would expect to see inside the Sunday newspaper – only smaller, and harder to read.

The problem Target faces, of course, is that there is enough variation in regional Target store circulars that one can not easily create a more native tablet version of the circular without a lot of production work. The digital circular is basically a digital flipbook, but without even pinch-to-zoom. But all products have built in links that do pull up a much better looking page with the product on it. In this way, the digital circular is very much like the NewspaperDirect apps where the reproduction of the print page can be used simply as a mechanism that links the reader to the story that has been reformatted for the tablet or smartphone.

Left: the older version of the Target for iPad app; Right: the version 2.0 app

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Newspapers are, of course, scared to death that they are about to lose one of the last remaining sources of solid ad revenue, their circulars. But their strategy seems to be to repeat the mistake made with classifieds: outsource the solution to a third party vendor that will, hopefully, trickle down some revenue to them through their investments. This strategy has led to the companies like Classified Ventures existing and preventing their newspaper partners from experimenting on their own with the category.

In others words, as usual newspaper executives are proving to be their own worst enemies.

I actually see these new ventures as creating more competition for newspapers, not less. Agencies will be encouraged to pull their ads from newspapers to be placed in national networks that will net far less for their newspaper partners.

But the real problem with these new ventures is that eventually become as stale and uncreative as the newspapers that created them. Careerbuilder, Cars.com and the other "pure plays" created to save classifieds have been slow to adapt to mobile and tablets. Let's face it, not only don't newspapers get digital, they also don't get the way Silicon Valley works, with its constant innovation, turnover, confusion, excitement, and uncertainty. Newspaper execs like to wake up in the morning and think nothing has changed since they went to bed, digital folk assume something major has occurred.

New study by Mequoda Group predicts rise in preference for digital magazine over print

I am generally skeptical about studies that attempt to predict the future of customer preferences. After all, how many of us would have said in 2006, for instance, that just two years later we would be getting out weather news from an app, or that a few years later we'd be reading much of our news through short sentences found on something called Twitter.

Nonetheless, Mequoda Group has today released the results of a study that they claim shows that 23 percent of current tablet owners already prefer reading magazines on their tablets, and then goes on to predict that a majority of readers will feel this was by 2020.

“The rapid consumer adoption of tablets, and an early preference for digital magazines over print magazines by their users, leads us to conclude that a long-range digital publishing strategy is imperative to the survival and prosperity of every magazine publisher," said Mequoda's CEO Don Nicholas.

You can read the study yourself by downloading it here.

Like most studies about tablets, the Mequoda Group study makes the mistake of throwing all tablets into the same boat. For instance, the study shows that 51 percent of tablet users prefer streaming video, as opposed to 39 percent who read books, 26 percent who read magazines. But one would guess that the type of tablet one owns will significantly influence media preferences (or many it won't). It is generally agreed, for instance, that iPad owners are more disposed to buying media – does this mean that iPad owners are more likely to read digital magazines on their tablets than the owners of another brand? Maybe, but I'd like to see this level of detail.

The study, though, does give publisher important reinforcement concerning the demographics of tablet owners, showing them generally more upscale. Again, though, the study lumps all tab owners together in ways that makes the data meaningless. For instance, the study shows a pretty much even split between men and women – which may be the case – but it is also possible that when one looks at the kinds of tablets owned by each group that patterns might arise. For instance, do women prefer smaller tablets, do they prefer Kindles? This might tell a magazine publisher that it is important to optimize their digital edition for smaller tablets, launch inside Amazon right away rather than simply launch for the Apple Newsstand.

Of course, Mequoda Group has a vested interest in all this so their conclusions must be taken with a grain of salt.

"All in all, no publisher should wait one single day more to launch a digital magazine. No matter how tiny your operation, there appears to be no downside for digital magazines and apps, and at the same time, there are clearly massive new revenue streams to be had," the study concludes.

The stand-alone magazine app is not dead quite yet as a small number of publishers continue to launch their apps outside the Apple Newsstand

For most magazine publishers the Apple Newsstand seems like the logical place to launch their tablet editions, and often is the first choice, with other digital newsstand like Google Play and Amazon (and others) considered secondary choices. But for a number of reasons, some magazine publishers are still choosing to launch their digital magazines as stand-alone apps inside the App Store. Cost, especially if they are using Adobe, is one reason. Marketing can be another.

Greek publisher Lambrakis Press S.A. continues to publish stand-alone apps for its Greek edition of Marie Claire. ΜΟΥΣΑ #3, as its name implies, is the third such stand-alone app, with the publishing cycle appearing to be somewhat quarterly.

The app is a fantastic digital edition, with issues quite large due to their animation and video. The downloads are excruciatingly slow, but since it is a stand-alone app the wait is all on the front end.

One gets a sense that this tablet edition remains an experiment as the issues continue to be free and there is no set publication schedule. With the Greek economy in shambles, it is probably a bit of a minor miracle that a digital edition this good is being produced at all.

Here is a brief look at the latest installment:

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It is a bit hard to figure out what Turnstile Media Group is trying to do with its title Golfweek. It's newest app, Golf Week Mag is a replica edition and a stand-alone app, a combination that is really quite rare.

The reason it is so rare is that if a replica edition is the goal there are an enormous number of vendors that will put your magazine title into the Newsstand at next to no cost. Some charge small fees, others are charging download fees, while still others are completely free but want a share of the revenue.

Golf Week's new app is functional, bug free, but utterly unreadable as all replica editions are. I suppose it is possible that this app could be made into a native tablet edition, and eventually moved into the Newsstand (as other publishers have done). But in the meantime this new app seems to me like a waste of time.

It is totally understandable that launching a native tablet edition for a weekly might be a burden and impractical at this time – and because of this a replica edition may be the solution of choice. But forcing readers to remember to download their issues each week really seems a terrible idea.

Turnstile Media Group seems to still be experimenting with the whole concept of digital editions. It still has a stand-alone app inside the App Store Golfweek for iPad which was originally launched back in March of 2011 – a million years ago in terms of the tablet publishing platform. But even in 2011 readers found it rather crude. "Expected much better. Very elementary design. Maybe it will get better but simply bad right now," wrote an early review.

Unfortunately, while the app has been regularly updated, it hasn't proven to be very popular. So the launching a new edition makes sense, but the publisher now finds themselves still with a rather outdated looking app that is not even capable of selling digital subscriptions.

ABM’s year-end report shows B2B media grew revenue overall, though print ad pages continue depressed

The year 2012 was hoped to be one of recovery for the B2B media business in the U.S., and while total industry revenue did manage some growth, print ad pages continues their decline.

Source: ABM BIN Report

Ad pages fell 6.94 percent for 2012, according to the ABM's year-end report, though December saw declines moderate somewhat, with ad pages down 6.69 percent versus the same month in 2011.

The results, though, have to be disappointing. 2011 eked out a microscopic increase in ad pages following a number of years with declines. B2B publishers have, as a result, been trimming back their magazine portfolios in response.

Overall, B2B media grew 4.3 percent for the year, led by strong trade show growth – by far the biggest revenue generator in the industry. Both data/business information services and digital advertising also grew, with digital ad revenue accounting for 16 percent of all B2B media revenue, according to the ABM (up from just over 12 percent in 2010).

The report for overall revenue in B2B is compiled by the ABM from its own BIN report for magazine advertising, the CEIR, the Center for Exhibition Industry Research report for trade shows, Outsell's report for data and business information, and ABM estimates based on the Interactive Advertising Bureau Ad Revenue Report.

Side note: the association continues to maintain its own website along side its new site at thenewabm.com following the association's merger with the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA).

Another side note: I've always been skeptical about revenue reports from third parties. Ad pages can be counted pretty cleanly, though things like make-goods and other giveaways end up in the final reports. But revenue reports assume a media property is getting its rate card rates. So it is best to look at both the ad page and revenue reports, compare them and come to your own conclusions based on your own experience.

Distributor brings its B2B magazine 'Chilled' to the iPad in a hybrid digital magazine for the Apple Newsstand

Downloading the first digital edition of Chilled for the iPad one anticipates that the digital edition will be a native tablet edition as the file is over 150 MB in size. But opening the first inside the new Apple Newsstand app one immediately sees a two-page ad spread over two tablet pages, typical of a replica edition.

What the reader gets, though, is a hybrid edition: a digital magazine where the print ads are reproduced exactly as in the print magazine, mostly without any enhancements, and the editorial is reformatted for reading on the tablet.

The digital publishing platform used here appears to be Mag+ based on its navigation and overall look. The initial disappointment is seeing the ads unchanged quickly disappears as the reader moves on to the editorial. Like many first digital issues, it is hard to get advertisers and their agencies to being swapping out creative for the digital edition, and many publishers are leery of crossing circulation audit rules.

But I doubt the publisher of Chilled is too concerned with circulation rules in the same way a consumer magazine normally would be. Chilled is a trade publication, with a vast majority of its readership being bartenders (the rest being consumer), according to the magazine's publisher Jeff Greif. This explains why the magazine is free to download within the Newsstand app.

Left and Middle: a 2-page ad spread over two iPad pages shows that this is a hybrid edition, where the ads are unchanged from print; Right: an article with sliding photos shows that the editorial pages have been reformatted for the tablet edition

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The magazine is published by Chilled Media LLC which is an offshoot of Chilled Distributors LLC – in other words, the beverage magazine is tied to the beverage distribution business. (The app appears under the developer account name of Anthony Graziano, president of both companies, and listed as managing editor of the magazine.)

The tie to the distribution business is a bit like those grocery store publications that contain ads from the food brands – in other words, its good to be on both sides of the business. This is something that we will see more and more of, and while some might call this content marketing, it is a little more complicated than that when we actually see it in print (or digital, as the case may be).

The magazine has had digital editions in the past as the title can be found inside the Zinio digital newsstand. RCS Publisher Services is credited with distribution services in the magazine and they may have had a hand in the digital edition.

The app may just be part of the publisher's overall digital distribution strategy, by creating a hybrid edition they have published a well-designed, easy to read digital edition, making many right choices.

Wanderful Media raises $9 million more in funding from its newspaper investment partners

Just four months ago Wanderful Media, the Los Gatos digital local discovery shopping company, announced that it had added $5 million in new funding. Today, the company acquired iCircular in November, announced that it had raised an additional $9 million. The new round of funding brings its total up to $36 million.

The company which hopes to find a way to save the circulars business for newspapers is backed by 12 major newspaper companies: Advance, Belo, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., Cox Media Group, The E. W. Scripps Company, Gannett, GateHouse, Hearst Corporation, Lee Enterprises, MediaNews Group, McClatchy, and The Washington Post Co.

Wanderful Media's CEO is Ben. T. Smith, IV, a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who was the founder of MerchantCircle (the COO comes from that start-up, as well).

Whether this is just more money circling the drain is to be seen, but the investments by major newspaper companies does follow a pattern whereby newspaper execs outsource their digital media solutions rather than build them in-house. In the print world, newspapers generally eschew any solutions that need outside vendors to succeed. They may not build their own printing presses but they spend millions making sure they are housed, maintained and operated by their own personnel.

In digital, however, newspaper companies have invested in outside firms in attempts to drive classified advertising – with the result, of course, that the category has almost completely disappeared. Worse, the financial commitments made have tied the hands of newspaper executives that would normally have been more aggressive in finding their own digital advertising solutions.

For many newspaper companies, the circular is one of the last profitable advertising segments they possess, the reason many still subscribe to the Sunday newspaper. Last November iCircular, the company many hoped would save the category, and an A.P. initiative, was acquired by Wanderful Media for "less than eight figures" (though that would still represent a large portion of Wanderful Media's own funding). Wanderful had previously bought a print to digital conversion company located in Chico, where it still maintains its development and operations office.

Wanderful's own product is called Find & Save, which for now is a web-based solution found on such newspaper websites as the San Francisco Chronicle. The company says its next move is to bring the solution to mobile and tablet devices where geolocation and push notification services can be employed.