A Sign of What Could Be the Future of Print
[vimeo video_id=”10207926″ width=”700″ height=”398″ title=”Yes” byline=”Yes” portrait=”Yes” autoplay=”No” loop=”No” color=”00adef”]
I think that what Alexx Henry did for Viv Mag is absolutely brilliant. Sure some mags may say this is too big of a production for them to realistically aspire to – but I’ll go ahead and say more power to him to truly pushing the envelope right into the future – and for pulling it off masterfully.
Some magazines editors may think: “We can’t possibly afford to do this kind of thing…” or maybe “this is too over the top for us… ”
My answer would be: producing original content such as this (and fabulous photo essays and stories as well of course) is the way you will THRIVE!
While a magazine obviously can’t produce this type of work for each article – and while many of us still love to read printed text, or to see wonderful 8 1/2 X 11 photographs – offering different and new content is critical. Technologies – and the level of talent out there – are begging for it.
Were I to be a magazine editor today – I’d be searching for new ways to draw viewers in. And if that means spending more money to produce different or better content – I’d go out there and try to get advertisers / sponsors excited about producing such exciting content – or to make sure I can somehow monetize all of the eyeballs hitting a popular feature / original content.
I know ViV magazine did… I’d never heard of them until a day ago – and now the whole lot of people have thanks to the incredible publicity this got.
I’m not suggesting that mags should strive to produce such impressive results all of the time in order to get eyeballs – but I am suggesting that they should strive to produce new types of content for the web (and find new ways to monetize them) in order to guarantee that they continue to attract an audience – especially a younger audience…
Here are two more to look through –
VIV Mag Featurette: A Digital Magazine Motion Cover and Feature for the iPad from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.
VIV Mag Motion Cover – iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.
Yes. It looks like the type of content tailored for what the iPad was designed for; a product for consumption or a receiver instead of a creative device. In other words; a product for the viewer. I think that mags will aim at an interactive e-zine with interactive menus like we see on DVDs today. It will be interesting to see if they can finally get people to pay for non-physical subscriptions.
This type of content creation needs much more input on the productive end and the tablets don’t really offer yet a real solution to sell them and make the extra investments more profitable than the print does now.
I think it’s over produced for a magazine. Put so much money into it and the print magazine should might as well become a full video magazine with video interviews of real experts and not flashy motion graphics that barely have anything to do with the content!
This definitely super cool, but I can’t believe that this will really catch on fast due to the high production costs. No doubt print magazines are going to die out at some point, but others have said print would be dead a long time ago and its still around. The biggest issue is as always money. I just can’t see how compaines would allocate such massive funds for such productions. I’d love to be wrong though….. 🙂
Too………
Dang………
Sloooooooow….
I’d click away from that faster than I click away from fellow photog’s websites excessively long flash loads and intros.
The genius of the print interface is that I can parse an entire publication, finding what interests me or finding what I want to go directly to. The devil is that those pages all cost a lot to put on dead trees.
I don’t want DVD menu like “featurettes” in the nav menu, getting between me and the content. I don’t need music and sound effects and motion and flash to somehow entertain or entice me into reading. Thought I can see the avenue for lots of ad revenue via product placement.
Now, if the video can be incorporated to make the experience fuller and richer, great. But I always said working at a newspaper that my job as a storyteller was to get the hell out of the reader’s way. And I tried to convey that to page designers. The most successful efforts were often the simplest, quickest and clearest.
Sound effects and cutesy video just to read a story? This platform frees us from the bonds of page-restrictions, it opens up the possibility for expanded and enhanced coverage, scope, content.
So we should be looking for ways to link expand, enhance.
Not add Hollywood effects.
Unless you’re producing content for a lad-mag or fashion pub.
Absolutely agree with Mitch! I recoiled in horror from the cheesiness of Viv’s time-waste approach. Hate it when force fed something that eats up my time and I can’t turn it off. Hate it. Therefore, I much prefer the WIRED view of the future, which incorporates much of what Mitch said: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/xd-inspire/transforming-the-magazine-experience-with-wired/
This concept remind me Macromedia flash when the technologie began to be interesting. A value added for a certain kind of presentation but at the end, we still prefer to navigate through simple html pages. The animated part add it a bit of fun but I can live without it (even prefer without it) when I read an electronic magazine or newspaper.
It’s looks cool, but I would never want to read a magazine like that. It reminds me too much of those “Top 10…” online articles that are so viciously hated by the online community because they are set up so that you have to turn a page to see each individual item on the list, instead of the short list it would have been in print. Why do they break up the list? So that they can put more ads in front of you.
Which is the big unanswered question in this presentation. When I open a print magazine, a huge percentage of it is either full-page ads or two-page spread ads. Where are the ads in this magazine? The ads that pay for all the high production values? They should be on the walls of the rooms in the video, delaying your access to the content, occupying half the screen, or something. How long will it be before we see magazines that make you sit through 2 minutes of un-skippable ads just to get to the table of contents, like the solid 8 pages of ads at the beginning of some print mags? We’ve already seen this happen with online television, or with the un-skippable trailers that start some DVDs.
I might just prefer to pick up a print magazine, flip past the ads to the TOC, flip straight to the article, and read the list of Five Common Sex Myths in less time than it takes for the Viv demo to reach the first button that actually lets you start reading the story.
It’s just too much! Where is the gamepad so I can blow away some monsters while “trying” to read the article? And, think of the budget. I seriously hope most publications keep it simple so we can actually read articles without all the distraction. Then, if the articles are going to be this motion intensive, think of all the ads that will have it. If I want to watch TV, I’ll watch TV. I don’t really care to watch my magazine. Well, maybe I’ll watch my Playboy subscription…
there are a lot of interactive publications using platforms like issuu and i paper already, and they are much better in terms of readability than the viv edition; unfortunately they have not been able to get the level of publicity this publication has gotten…oh well. i guess it is all about who you know and who knows about you. i would be more than happy to direct you to a few….
regards.
Brilliant and sexy. What a great idea! Something tells me this is going to be a huge success. For the magazine companies and the small effects houses.
“…my job as a storyteller was to get the hell out of the reader’s way”. Thank you Mitch!
Even though I am excited about the ipad for READING and this Viv thing looked amazing, it just reminded me of when CD ROMs came out and they all had some “extra stuff” like that. Not more content, just more colors and sounds. I don´t need that stuff. I don´t want that passive TV experience. I love TV and film, but I don´t have a signal going to my TV just for that reason. The TV is only on to watch exactly what I want to watch, when I want to watch it. And it all comes from my computer.
I don´t want to be force fed anything. Get the hell out of my way!
As someone else pointed out there are already interactive publishing outlets. Viv is actually digitally published by Zinio, which has a host of other digital publications available by subscription from Business Week to National Geographic, to Maxim and Mac World. Having worked on some video content for on-line publications, I embrace the concept, but this is hardly new: The “new -ness’ is that it is being used to demonstrate a product – in this case the iPad. In saying this I don’t want to diminish or minimize Alexx Henry’s work. I do want to point out that publishers have been moving towards developing digital content for
digital distribution well in advance of the arrival of the iPad. Your call to publishers should be to look at some of the independent projects out there, which come on line without the legacy print baggage that many mainstream publications bring to their digital products: If they don’t, their digital products may suffer the same way their print publications have.
Regards
There will be fewer big budget magazines with paid writers. If there are ten magazines that have similar content, it used to be that they all could survive because they published at different times of the month. Depending on “when” consumers went to the newsstand, and how eyecatching your front cover was, and if they found an interesting article that they couldn’t finish at the newsstand – that is how you hooked a reader. If a mag did it twice, then the consumer might get a subscription. But it depended entirely on good content – be it a mag or newspaper.
But now there are free sites. In order for consumers to pay for it, the content has to be better than what they can find from free sites. The flashy motion might hook a reader to look, but it’s the content that makes them pay.
Sites like Wallstreet journal and ESPN get customers to pay because the analysis and commentary is so much better than a blogger. They have journalists who have accesss to inside information.
The fluff magazines won’t make it, because you can now get fluff anywhere. VIV has made a good hook, if it backs it up with content that you can’t get anywhere else then it will have a future.
I think its interesting when I hear people say, pshhh! this iPad thing is ridiculous! I have a computer. that’s all I need. Remember when people said, CELL PHONES? who needs those? I’ve got a cordless and a pocket full of quarters. I’m sure when TV came along all those magazine and book readers were like, “fuddlebut! Who needs to watch something when I can read about it! … or I can just go to the picture house.” HAHAHAHA and remember the first audiences who saw a motion picture? It was of a train barrelling forward? The audience practically wet their britches. They thought the train was going to run them over! Obviously they’ve never seen anything like this before. So, their reactions was one of fear. Any marketing goon will tell you, if a product makes the audience fear for their life, no one will want to buy it.
So, why did all those newfangled devices stay around, amidst a culture of naysayers? Well, aside from being awesome, there were people on the inside who saw a bigger picture. They were able to convince people with money to take riskes and invest. And when people with money are worried their little experiment might fail, they set up safe guards, like advertising, promoting, making it shinier and glitzier than it probably needs to be, like the ViV article.
Personally, I’m super-stoked ViV went all out on this sex fears issue. Sure, its probably too much for a fluff peice, but I think that’s the point. If they’re going to spend all this money and generate all this exposure about their entry into the iPad world, the article doesn’t really matter. It’s about potential. I see what ViV did and I’m so glad a publisher actually went that far.
Who here works for a newspaper? Would any of your publishers do anything like this? Okay, you NYT’s people can put your hands down. But do you see my point? In order to move forward and crack this new medium’s potential wide open, I think some people need to see what can be done, first.
So, when you say things like, “get out of the reader’s way,” I agree with you to a certain extent. But not when it’s a fluff piece about sex. I’m sure Cosmo has republished that same article 18-bazillion times already. I say if publishers need a gimmick to make their weak content more glossy, AND it ends up hiring a butt-ton of professionals along the way, I say do it.
If anything, it’ll set the tone for quality, well FUNDED journalism on the iPad.
I hesitate making this comparison, but I think the bevy of reality TV shows has in some way wettened the culure’s appetite for real documentaries. Has anyone seen the Discovery Chanel’s Planet Earth series? Obviously, there’s a built in market for wild life shows, BUT there’s not a built in producer to shell out that kind of doe. That’s an expensive series to make. But it’s amazing! March of the Penguins. SHARK WEEK! Current TV is doing an excellent job making people-oriented documentaries.
My point is, I think the iPad and persobal tablets in general, like the computer, cell phone, TV, and motion picture, will be culturally normalized. Why? Well, who on this list would refuse a free iPad? That’s what I thought. So, people want them. maybe they don’t want to pay for them yet (like cell phones, TVs, blah blah blah. you see my point) Second, aside from apple, how many competitors are out there? A bunch, all thanks to the Kindle. You better believe those companies are going to be pushing and pushing and pushing. And all that pushing is going to invent more innovation, more convenience, and a better user experience. …not to mention jobs. Maybe the iPad is our way out of the recession?
Anders Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 3:17 am
@Matt Roth, I think most people was saying “pshh” about the use of the iPad, not the iPad itself. That being said, there are millions of people that buy magazines I wouldn´t wipe my ass with, magazines toatally lacking any intelligence and completely relying on glossy images and gossip. As a reading and websurfing device I think I will love the iPad. I´m just saying that I dont need all that extra visual stuff that adds very little to the content. It could potentially add A LOT though, but time and time again I´ve seen it add nothing but annoyance.
“History repeats itself”. Historically, if you look at TV, you will see that the TV is still TV. What changed is how it’s used. Appointment viewing has been replaced by DVR’s, Hulu and other downloads and user-scheduled viewing. But in the majority of American households, the television set remains. In fact, there are more of them than ever. Most notable is that it didn’t happen overnight but rather over time.
More likely for print/publishing is the use of the FMD, patented and in development by ATG DesignWorks. (www.atgdesignworks.com). Not only b/c it allows the publisher to retain its customary publication but b/c the technology is within the publication itself, removing all the platforms, formats, etc that must be dealt with among devices and aps. With the FMD, readers get video content from a lightweight, flexible, video screen in their favorite, totally portable publication. (This is not Americhip’s rigid, postage-sized screen, btw, but a full sized, hi rez, lightweight, flexible screen) Publishers get their newsstand price and/or subscription fees and readers get video interviews, demos or other content that strengthens the content–be that editorial or ad messaging. The FMD is the best way to handle the expectations of tech-savvy readers while introducing video/print integration to traditionalists.
Production cost might be high…but this would catch the younger, techno savy generation. It moves, it’s dynamic, it looks good and draws you in.
I love the idea. I also think it won’t be for now but it might become the future. More and more video is being produced now because the younger generation is asking for interaction, video and dynamic images.
Congrats on the makers…really nice work!
I do think this is a bit much. I don’t quite need or want all that production value on a magazine. It feels a bit too flashy, like when everyone was running around with SLRs shooting shallow depth of field demos. It’s like yeah we get it you can do this, but lets refine this all a bit.
I do like Wired and Adobe’s approach to this a bit more. It’s less flashy and over done but just as informative, more intuitive, and a snappier experience. You can get to the meat and bones of what you want really quickly and it has expandable interactivity to what you would get in a print magazine.
Thanks for posting this Vincent.
While these do look awesome I believ these magazines are kind-of missing the point. Magazines are popular because they are static. You can easily show your friends stuff in them, you can easily reference to page 24.
These concepts aren’t magazines. They are multimedia. They are in my opinnion way to fluid and way to much like videos. When I read a magazine I don’t want a video with sound. I want a reading experience.
A more correct concept would be to have the base layout static, using animations to help the user experience.
You could totally destroy the concept of pages, and just have the entire magazine scrollable from left to right (A concept, I believe, developed by finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat). You could compress long stories into a smaller footprint on the screen, using a flick movement to view more columns. This way stories wouldn’t have to be edited shorter in layout.
Basically I think these concept videos go too far. I don’t want to have to press “pause” when reading if I’m interupted. I just want to be able to look at something else and not “miss” something happening in the magazine I’m reading.
This model will not last. As a lot of you have said, people don’t want to wait for their content. we want the world and we want it now. are people really going to sit through meaningless animations before they can access the next page of an article they’re reading? A few, maybe, but not many. Wired is definitely on a better track…make it interactive, make it user friendly, but keep the focus on accessing the content you want as soon as you want it. Faster than you can flip through a magazine to find an undiscovered article, you can thumb through wired’s table of content. That its interactive and has video to augment the articles is great. But again, it’s all available immediately. Start making people suffer through pointless animations that do nothing but interrupt you from the flow of information, and people will respond negatively with their purchasing (or lack thereof).
I’m all for paying for non-physical subscriptions especially if it’s interactive and always current. Better if it’s wired.
Print was suppose to be dead after radio. Radio was suppose to be dead after Film. Film was suppose to be dead after TV. Print is still alive. For a reason… some of us read to be informed… and watch a movie to entertained. It always drives me up the wall when I click on an article online… and it links me to a video… NOOO!!! I just want to read it real fast, not WATCH IT! Sometimes, I’m not in a position to cut on sound and tolerate several minutes of video… when I could of just read it on a page in nanoseconds. Sometimes, you just need to read stuff to get the information you need and move on. Can you imagine going to grocery store and having animated labels on the back of canned foods and you have to wait for it to display the information, because it’s too busy torturing you with stupid production value, when all you want is content info. It might be the way of the future, but it’s assbackwards. And like I said, print should of died a long time ago… and didn’t… and these stupid motion articles aren’t going to affect them in the least. If anything, they’re going to have to add a “SKIP F@CKING INTRO” button.
And how to get published at iBookstore? I haven’t seen any clue on it except for big publishers that sealed the deal with Apple beforehand.
I can see it now people, us, national enqirer on my maxIpad with moving images of celbs getting groceries and other completely mundane activities.
With content this dumb, god help us.
Well, let’s see: if magazines can’t make a nickel now, one can only imagine how they’ll fare if their readers demand this kind of content and its attendant costs. “Bureau chief? F that! We need six more stylists.”
But personally I have to ask: is this the final stop, where it’s all about sizzle and there’s no steak at all? I think I bail at that point and curl up in a fetal position with some Shakespeare.
I am sad. Movies and TV shows have gotten so dumb for the masses, now our magazines may go the MTV route of 2 second flashes of nothing. Our vocabulary will one day be the two words, “wow” or “dude.” The dumbing down of the masses is not the wagon for everyone to jump into, please help people to get out of it.
I have become a dinosaur.
Group think makes everyone a common marshmallow in a bag. I am with Brian, I would prefer steak to sizzle. I am also trying real hard to stop posting negative comments, so I am sorry I did today. My point is that I want the creativity of the masters to have a formative effect on me, trying to be wowed all the time is tiring. So please take this is another opinion, and not as common criticism, because I do not have the skills or the vision that most of you have as artist. I come here to your blog often Vincent because I like your work and your blog. Please do not take this comment as more mean spirited input, it is just the other side of the coin. I want print today and tomorrow. 🙂
Please take a look at a magazine that works :
The Surfer’s Journal It has almost no advertising, just amazing content. This is what magazines need to do.
can the IPAD be used as an external monitor for photo shoots?
Thanks for this post… LOVE the conceptualization of this type of product. SOOO sad it can’t be done in Flash though. Keeping my fingers crossed that Apple will come around. I own everything Apple, and already have an iPad. BUT, will probably have to buy HP’s slate and leave the iPad in a drawer. CAN’T believe I am saying this myself, but Flash isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and if you want to enjoy 50% of the web, you simply have to have flash installed.
This is a rehash of the CD-ROM multimedia fad of the mid 90’s.
The Voyager company made some of the best (for example, The Residents freak show!). However, today they are mostly forgotten. The reason is that people don’t want to consume information this way. They want to access what they want right away, not having to sit through long intros and overly flashy graphics. It’s a good way to present a game, but a bad way to present content.
Content on the ipad will look like content on the web. Web sites that are successful on the web will be successes on the ipad.