"Apostar por el iPad es un sinsentido"

Hoy creo que voy a abusar de la confianza de nuestros lectores para transcribir una cita, larga y en versión original, que me parece extraordinaria por el contrapunto que aporta a la reflexión sobre el potencial de los tablets para el sector de las revistas.

Se trata de un extracto de una entrevista a Jann Wenner, editor y propietario de RollingStone, publicada hace pocas semanas en Advertising Age. Lo pongo a continuación, con algunos destacados (en negrita), que son míos:

"It's the same pretty much as I've said about the web. The tablet itself is a really fun device. Some people are going to enjoy it a lot and use it. Some people aren't. On this plane one person's traveling with a tablet, one's not. There's a certain trendiness to the thing. And it's a great thing. But is it a good magazine thing?
It's a good magazine reading device, absolutely. And where it becomes more convenient to read the magazine on that, that's got the advantage. But that's more convenient only if you're traveling, if you're away from home. Otherwise it's still easier to read the physical magazine, which is widely available on newsstands, at airports, and everywhere. You can still subscribe to get it and get it on time. You still get all the value of the magazine.
I don't think that gives you much advantage as a magazine reader to read it on the tablet -- in fact less so. It's a little more difficult.
From the publisher's point of view I would think they're crazy to encourage it. They're going to get less money for it from advertisers. Right now it costs a fortune to convert your magazine, to program it, to get all the things you have to do on there. And they're not selling. You know, 5,000 copies there, 3,000 copies here, it's not worth it. You haven't put a dent in your R&D costs.
So I think that they're prematurely rushing and showing little confidence and faith in what they've really got, their real asset, which is the magazine itself, which is still a great commodity. It's a small additive; it's not the new business".

Y sobre la comparación con la music industry:

"But the lesson for magazine publishing business is not to rush like the music business should have done, because it's a different product. Music is really easily reducible to digital. There's a different beat to it.
Be attuned. Get ready to make the moves. Be adept at moving quickly to the changes. But to rush to throw away your magazine business and move it on the iPad is just sheer insanity and insecurity and fear. And because it coincided with the ad recession, they conflated the two events until they themselves believed that magazines are dead. Part of what we did in this ad campaign was partially to address the magazine business itself, to say hey boys, girls, you've got great values, you should learn about them yourself -- as well as tell advertisers".

Creo que sobran las palabras, pero básicamente Wenner afirma que apostar por los tablets es el mayor error que la industría editorial podría llegar a cometer. Todo llegará, pero hará falta tiempo.

Una interesante reflexión, que aporta perspectiva a la valoración sobre la aportación real de este nuevo tipo de aparato.

MÁS EN:
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/jann-wenner-magazines-tablet-migration-decades/227827/