Magazine ‘App’-titude

When CNN announced plans earlier last week to acquire Zite, an upstart creator of magazine apps for Apple’s iPad, it wasn’t exactly Earth-shattering news.

The East Coast was still sweeping up after Irene. In the wake of a disaster that almost was, the acquisition caused nary a ripple in the blogosphere.

Understandable.

The announcement didn’t exactly blow the deck chairs off anybody’s front porch. But content creators should take heed.  That a major media provider such as CNN, owned by Time Warner, would shell out twenty-some-odd million dollars for a fledgling app maker says something worth reading about where the industry is headed.

It brings to mind a post another contributor to this blog, Scott Bolgiano, published here last spring. In an open letter to then Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Scott suggested that Apple create a proprietary magazine app for the iPad. Like Apple’s online iTunes store, Scott’s brainchild (He called it the iMag rack.) would give iPad users a universal application for buying, storing, reading and interacting with their favorite magazine titles online.

Jobs apparently didn’t get the memo. After a seven-month medical leave and amid growing speculation about his health, the world’s most famous pitchman announced his retirement Aug. 24, effectively handing over the reigns of one of the world’s largest, most enigmatic companies to longtime confidant and COO Tim Cook.

Early reports of Jobs’ legacy at Apple have drawn comparisons to Thomas Edison. It’s not a parallel I’m ready to embrace. Jobs certainly shed new light on the user experience, but he didn’t exactly turn on the electricity. Even as he relinquishes day-to-day operations at Apple, the quest to improve the relationship between user and device continues.

CNN’s acquisition of Zite is a clear example of this. Designed with Apple’s iPad in mind, the technology is more remarkable for what it does than the system on which it’s built. Developers say the software application, which CNN plans to adapt to tablet platforms beyond the iPad, lets users aggregate content from a variety of sources, choosing topics and subjects that matter to them. The result: a custom-tailored online magazine-style interface that, according to Zite, “gets smarter as you use it.”

Just how smart is a matter of debate. The application hit a snag in March when certain news organizations, including Dow Jones and Time Inc., another Time Warner subsidiary, sent Zite cease-and-desist letters claiming that the app’s interface was harmful to their business. A change in how Zite displays its news stories reportedly settled the gripe.

Still, I can’t help but think that CNN’s purchase of Zite seems a little counterintuitive. Why in the name of Wolf Blitzer would the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in News” readily provide its readers with an interactive window to its online competition?

“This is a bet on Zite but also a bet on the tablet market and the growth of the mobile business and how people are discovering content on those devices,” said KC Estenson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com in a release Monday. “I find myself using search engines less and less on my tablet, on my iPad. I’m discovering content in a variety of ways.”

Estenson has a vested interest in what he’s saying here. That much is obvious. But I’m willing to bet a lot of readers feel the same way. If that’s the case, CNN’s relatively quiet acquisition of Zite and other deals like it stand to have a bigger and potentially more transformative impact on the content industry than people might realize.

A couple ideas to consider:

• From a content creation standpoint, at least, the notion that readers are increasingly turning to tools that let them customize their experience tells us that our editorial must be strong enough to withstand not only our direct competition, but our readers’ other interests as well.

That means recommitting ourselves to ensuring all that we publish is accurate, engaging and useful to our target audience.

• If digital readers really are the way of the future, more magazine apps will follow. That means that, in addition to great content, content creators also must know a thing or two about technology.

Are your magazine articles formatted in a way that the text, art and graphics can be easily downloaded to a digital device? Is your technology platform neutral, or might readers be excluded for using a technology platform that your content, for whatever reason, does not play nice with?

• Have a little fun with it. The digital environment allows us to use our content in ways not thought possible before. Consider interactive elements such as clickable charts and graphs. Embedded video links and other multimedia features within your content are another way to make your stories come alive on the digital page.

When news broke of Steve Jobs’ retirement, I honestly felt bad for my buddy Scott. The iMag rack was such a good idea. The least Jobs could have done was respond to the poor guy’s letter. I have to imagine he reads this blog.

Take heart, my friend. There’s always CNN.

[Image: John Federico and Photo Giddy]