Comments Today concludes our summaries of MAX sessions designed for Enterprise and Professional customers. We are grateful to everyone who joined us at MAX and shared their experiences with digital publishing. If this summary piques your interest, click on the Adobe TV link in the post to explore the topic further.
MODERATOR:
Sarah Rotman Epps, Forrester
PANELISTS:
Daniel Blackman, Chief Digital Officer, Newsweek Daily Beast
James Kober, Director of Advertising Operations, Newsday
Dale Bryson, Prepress Director, Source Interlink Media
In this session, three panelists discuss their digital publishing successes and challenges over the past year, from deciding which platforms to prioritize to maintaining the print brand on an interactive format. Because they have been making strategic decisions in a rapidly changing environment, they also are on top of news related to the future of digital publishing, including monetization, social media, and the role of the web. Here are some highlights. To listen to the full session, click here.
- When resourcing their tablet app strategy, media companies found that it’s important to staff the print and digital versions with the same people. Designers often have a vision for the brand and want that vision to carry over to the digital product.
- Teams feel a sense of success the first time they experiment with Digital Publishing Suite. Although they have seen examples of others’ work, a creative “spark” appears when they realize how the interactivity can enhance their own publications. For example, Motor Trend can feature the sights, sound, and motion of a car, which couldn’t be fully showcased in print. However, they also have to determine how much interactivity is appropriate for content.
- Interactivity creates a sense of engagement because consumers like to control things, such as the color or interior of a BMW in an ad.
- The industry still grapples with questions about pricing. Digital subscriptions tend to be on par with print subscriptions, but special issues allow for more pricing flexibility. For consumer convenience, subscribers should be able to access the publication no matter what device they are using, arguing for pricing between print and digital to be on par. However, there is an added value to being able to access it in multiple places, which could potentially warrant a higher price.
- Web vs. apps? The internet provides an obvious scale and reach that tablet apps do not provide. However, consumers want and expect different content on the web than they want on their tablet devices. People expect to find breaking news on the web and will toggle between windows and check other sites. We tend to be more focused when consuming content on a tablet.
- There are several ways to monetize digital publications including advertising, subscriptions, and e-commerce. Consumers are willing to pay for apps even though most of the content that is inside can be found for free, which speaks to the type of reading experience that tablets provide.
- Users discussed integration of DPS into content management and workflow systems.