ur first edition was launched in March 2010; the timing just allowing us to make an initial report on Apple’s brand new gizmo, the iPad that Steve Jobs had announced that January, though sales would not start until April.
I’d like to go back and examine the reaction to the launch of the iPad. Everyone knew it was coming. Sports Illustrated famously had dummied a tablet edition some months beforehand, gues- sing what the features may be. The reaction to the arrival of the iPad, however, was far from universal acclaim. For example,
the digital content director of a leading UK newspaper said:
“Is that it then? A bloody great iPhone? If any newspaper publishers hoped it would be the missing link between digital investment and reward, the sight of Steve Jobs lazily stroking his big touch screen while muttering “awesome”... will have come as a blow.”
Yet for all that, it also, as we now know, was the product that has revolutionised the magazine industry, taking the magazine experience onto another plane. Our Innovations Report in 2010 said rather more prophetically that the iPad would “offer publishers exquisite methods of showcasing new, creative, multi-media content and new possibilities to charge for that content.” That has come to pass, and many of the stories in this year’s Innovations in Magazine Media World Report show how publishers are flexing the functionality of all the tablet devices.
Doing new things, taking a risk no matter how calculated, is always a little scary and is the time when support is most needed. In the magazine media industry there is no shortage of talented people coming up with new ideas of which some will work, often in unexpected ways, and some, inevitably will fail. The task is to keep trying. We launched this annual Innovations Report in 2010 to both inform and encourage everyone involved in pushing the boundaries of our industry.
Our Innovations in Magazine Media World Report has now become an eagerly awaited pu- blication, and arguably is the most important publication FIPP produces. For the past two years it has been translated into Chinese by the China Periodicals Association, and I’d be happy to talk to anyone interested in publishing future language editions. In addition, our editors, Juan Senor and John Wilpers from the Innovation Internacional Media Consul- ting Group, are often invited to present at conferences all around the world, demonstra- ting in wonderfully graphic detail, the contents of this Report, all with the goal of sprea- ding the word on just how creative and forward thinking our industry is.
More case study submissions have been made to us this year than ever before, and it’s been quite a task editing down to the final choice, so, finally, my thanks go to Juan Señor and John Wilpers, and to Helen Bland from FIPP who have done such a magnificent job.