Tomorrow we’ll finally see Apple’s tablet computer, whatever it is finally called. I’ll write another column then attempting to explain where I think this thing is likely to succeed or fail for Apple. But right now I don’t see much point in speculating about something we’ll know for sure within 24 hours. It’s much more useful, I think, to look instead at the Big Media companies Apple is targeting with this device, why they might be attracted and whether the iPad/iSlate/iWhatever is likely to deliver what they think they need.
It won’t.
I was talking not long ago with editorial folks at an unnamed media company that rhymes with “The New York Times.” There was some possibility of my blogging over there. They were intrigued, but couldn’t fit it into their grand plan, at least not right away. The problem was resources were already allocated and such an endeavor takes months to mount and costs tens of thousands of dollars.
No it doesn’t, and that’s the problem with Big Media.
When I was at PBS we did occasional redesigns and I never knew what they cost because for most of my 11 years there I was just a paid contributor. But toward the end of my tenure I became a producer which means I was finally exposed to budgets and was, to some extent, even responsible for paying some of them. And I was shocked to learn that my final design for a Moveable Type blog over there did, indeed, cost tens of thousands of dollars — many tens of thousands of dollars.
PBS isn’t a company that rhymes with “The New York Times” but it still qualifies as Big Media, so the pricing was more or less confirmed.
Now look at the screen you are reading right now, my WordPress blog at cringely.com. It cost me NOTHING to design. I did it myself in a single night with the help of an experienced and generous friend, Benjamin Higginbotham of Spacevidcast.com. This blog is hosted by Media Temple in Los Angeles and costs me $50 per month, which is a lot compared to most blogs, but then I’m getting more than a million page-views per month. One more Christmas card or IBM column and I might bump up to $100 per month just to get some more resources, but I think I’ve made my point: a good Internet media product doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. This is my living, remember, that’s putting three kids through school. What are my gross margins — 10,000 percent?
While those are my gross margins they aren’t the gross margins at PBS or at a company that rhymes with “The New York Times.” Those outfits have overhead I don’t. They have legacy relationships and obligations I can’t even imagine. They can’t just go from there to here in an instant even if they wanted to.
Which brings us back to the iSomething to be introduced tomorrow. No matter how great it is, it can’t support the legacy infrastructure of Big Media, which includes mid-town office buildings and business lunches (hence my picture of New York’s 21 Club, if you hadn’t already figured that out).
Big Media wants revenue approaching what they could charge if a web site was a printed magazine. Remember the original lure of the Internet for publishers was the idea that there would be more profit without the expenses of printing and distribution. But it didn’t work out that way because Internet users won’t generally pay for content.
But Apple has the mojo. Steve Jobs has been firm from the start that content should be paid for and his generally is, except of course for my podcast on iTunes. Big Media likes the way Steve thinks. And so they can with one breath condemn him for killing the music album, yet in a second breath they can see him as the savior of magazines, newspapers, and good-but-thinly-watched TV series.
And Apple CAN be that savior, but only after a rationalization and severe downsizing of Big Media overhead, which I am not at all sure Big Media is really ready to do.
Based on the rumors I’ve heard so far I’m guessing the new Apple product will be — like the Apple TV — a hobby, a critical success but a business failure, though one with enough potential that Apple will give it a few years to succeed. It’s in giving those few years where Apple really can save Big Media, which will undoubtedly by then be not so big.
quote:
“But Apple has the mojo. Steve Jobs has been firm from the start that content should be paid for and his generally is, except of course for my podcast on iTunes. Big Media likes the way Steve thinks.”
The main difference between Jobs and Big Media is price.
Steve wanted $.99 and the labels ask for much more.
Would iTunes succeed is price was variable and higher? I think no.
Same with movies and TV shows. Labels and studio “loved” subscriptions. Did they succeed? I think no.
So, IMO, Apple makes its business on fulfilling the [usually unknown to themselves] desires of customers.
Labels/Studios/Media make its business on exploiting customers desires.
Who will win? (Hint: Which company got 50% increase revenue over the year?)
“Want to make a profit with your Big Media company on the internet? There’s an app for that.” … or, is there? I guess we’ll see.
Good move for Apple though, instead of putting resources into their bliggity bloggies and their facey-pagies, Big Media can now put big money into the App Store too – while they still have money. Apple will get a 30% cut of greater pool of content. Maybe Apple will be able to increase profitablility of the App Store with say, offering one App for the NY Times at a fixed cost, while for that one App make available, thanks to the Times, a greater diversity of content appealing to an audience larger by several factors.
I don’t see big media dragging their heals on this. They’re nearly in panic mode when it comes to a profitable online model. Im sure the wheels of progress are rolling along behind the scenes as we speak. It would be naive to think otherwise, considering the buzz around Apple’s Tablet and all.
I also don’t think Tablet sales will suffer if they are late anyway. There is plenty of existing content with the internet, Apps, music, videos, TV, etc, etc. The functionality of the device will eventually go far beyond just newspapers and magazines. Look how far the iPhone and mobile computing have come in 3 short years. I think anyone imaging failure here is going to be dead wrong. It’s going to be a watershed device and change the face of computing forever. In 5 years you will be making fun of the laptop in front of you today.
oh, Media is in a wild panic all right, but they are basically attempting to shift to known directions. TV isn’t dead? — then let’s take our reporters off the street and out of the bar talking to folks who don’t want to be seen or known, and have them wear nice ties and put three-point lighting on them and tape them talking their stories and present it on flash.
and sell so many dead-slow flash ads that the users turn flash video off.
blogs? — dude, they’re hot, all the kids are doing blogs. and some are fun, and some are informative, and some grab participants, and some do all three. but this chops up the blogger’s day at the expense of other items. say, answering that phone call on the unpublicized line, printed on the business cards that only have that number, for the really good sources of really good news.
at this point, the guys with their backs to the wall, the Washington Times and the Christian Science Monitor and the Seattle P-I, who have ditched print and gone fully online only, are the ones that will likely invent the new quality alternative to print that will save newspapers.
the big thing about online is, there is no method of screening the dreck from the quality, short of knowing what the original operation was.
and a lot of folks who think they’re informed are in reality dumber than a post because they are going to anti-intelligent sites for news-like food product material.
Making fun of the laptop I have today? I’m already on the super media machine…and this one has a real keyboard! The only thing the iFlop is going to do is give the big media companies hope that they can still make huge profits in a “free media rich environment. People will steer towards free and open platform media. The Apple TV tablet introduced tomorrow will go the way of the Apple TV, just as Cringely predicts…Google is going to crush Apple….wait and see.
I agree with your analysis here regarding the usefulness of this device for Big Media. But the iWhatever’s fortunes won’t depend on licensing all of Big Media’s content, like the Apple TV’s fortunes did. It will rise or fall on *convenience*, and Apple is uniquely positioned to offer convenience in the form of One Shop For All Your Media.
Also I think something that has been true for over 20 years, and which Steve has finally started to appreciate with the iPod Touch and the iPhone, is that it’s all about the games.
If this device can deliver games, movies, tunes, and—what the heck—the occasional book and magazine, and if it can deliver them all via the iTunes store on the one credit card account, then it will be revolutionary.
I’ll just add that Bill Gates always understood the importance of games, and that played a major part in why Microsoft won and Apple lost in the 80s and 90s.
I seem to remember that Intel conducted a study of their customer’s usage patterns in about 1995 or so. About 5% listed games as the primary reason they bought a computer. But much to Intel’s shock, about 80% listed games as the primary thing they did with their computer. What that number means is this: if your computer won’t play games, 80% of people won’t buy it. And the number has probably grown over the intervening years.
I think Cringely is on to something bigger than flogging the old and done war between Apple and PC. I think it is best you move on my friend. Besides don’t you feel silly picking a fight over that here and now? I mean just the fact that you are looking into tomorrows release and feel the need to spout angry anti-apple isms says it all. If Apple was as misguided and irrelevant as you say perhaps Gates would still be CEO. And Microsoft would be as angry as you are. The truth is that the two companies are very different and do very different things. one is a monopolist open solution company and the other a closed solution vertically integrated large niche company with tendrils into all sorts of other businesses. And it has this vast reach because it has kicked serious ass while Microsoft has failed in about everything except maintaining its OS and its Office revenues. Rightly so, those ARE its biggest and most important cash cows. And in fairness the Xbox could turn out to be very strategic down the road. The funny thing about that was that it succeeded precisely because it was not daned important enough to merit much management attention from Big bill while he was there. Thus we had a historical monopoly, Microsoft making a great enduser product with amazing appeal without putting in so many poisonous monopolist features and tie ins that people stayed away from it. And Apple well they did flounder in the 80s and early 90s. Then Steve came back an older and wiser innovator and the rest is tech history that you apparently do not like as you seem still very bugged that anyone pays attention to apple instead of asking why is it that they do? Anyway, I think it will be interesting to see what apple does with their pad tomorrow and I hope it is a value to the end user and if so that it succeeds like the iphone, the Ipod and the terrific apple OSX. No Worries though Bennet I think Win 7 looks terrific too. And I really like the new technical guys they have over at MS now. very good guys. But do yourself a favor an join the new decade in your thinking. the 80s FYI was 30 years ago, is that really that relevant to the ongoing process of Apple or MS now?
What? I’m a huge apple fan, all my computers and phones and media players are apple products. I’d say it’s you who’s stuck in 80s thinking if you can’t read even one criticism of apple’s strategy without invoking some kind of fundamentalist OS war.
Forget big media. I don’t know if Steve Jobs wants to be their savior. But what Apple could save that would benefit us more than seeing old media survivor the digital age is education. The cost of books alone is outrageous in every level of education in our country. Many publishers have some sort of digital version, but either you only get it with the purchase of the book or it costs just as much as the printed book. This is ridiculous and has been a burden on our education system for too long. Apple could change this market, especially if they can talk the publishers into lowering the cost of these eText Books.
Also, did anyone else find it interesting that Mr. Cringely uses Media Temple but a Rack Space ad banner is on the sidebar? Also, a Microsoft Ad. More power too you, but I always find it funny when the content is next to ads of competing products and companies.
The answer on E-textbooks might be out of copyright books, with open-source supplements for the material that’s changed over the years. A semester’s required books might fit onto a SD card, and prevent a multitude of back injuries.
Newspapers foolishly think they are in the news business.
Wrong!
They are in the Advertising business. News is the stuff that fills the blank spaces between the ads. It’s not the free content that is killing them. It’s the cheaper advertising and that great sucking sound that rhymes with ‘Google’.
Microsoft has been desperately trying to compete with Google and has been failing miserably. Apple is also now in the game. Will they succeed? I don’t know. But I do know that I will often look things up on my iphone using apps that bypass Google. Hmm. Maybe Apple does have a plan…
We live in interesting times. Whether that is a blessing or a curse may depend on who wins this war.
DD
I agree completely. Bob Lewis, over at InfoWorld, made a point some years ago that the product of Big Media was not content, but eyeballs. Not stuff for you and me to read, but we readers to lay eyes on advertiser’s ads. Just as you pointed out just now.
I have heard many people assert that nearly every publication could be delivered for free, sustained by advertising revenue (Consumer Reports being one ad-free exception), with the further assertion that the main reason most publications charge for each issue or a subscription is to leverage perceived value. If I receive a magazine in the mail for free once a month, it might pile up unread, while I wait to get around to reading this thing I got for free. If I pay $36 per year, I’m going to pick up that rag everytime it arrives, and at least thumb through the important articles (accidentally spying ads, too….the pubs real “product”).
So, I can see why there’s a history of charging for printed Big Media. But, in this day and age of “Google knows the answer to every question”, I don’t understand why “Big Media” is so wedded to the idea of readers paying for content. There’s too much content available elsewhere for free, and the for-pay sites will lose the real product they’re trying to deliver: eyeballs on ads.
Rupert Murdock, the newspaper that rhymes with “The New York Times”, and other Big Media should be figuring out how to rank highly in Google’s search results….THAT’s the new “skill” they should be bringing to the table in selling their real product to their real customers (eyes to advertisers).
If I were an advertiser, I’d be buying ads on the news site that is successful at getting high ranking on Google, not the sites that are successfully locking eyeballs out with a financial firewall.
okay … 10,000 percent on $50 per month … ah, can anyone do the math? (i think bob might be exaggerating a little imho)
$50 x 10,000% is $5000. Or about $60,000 a year. At least when I add it up…
Big Print have visions of selling all their papers and magazines via iTunes for about the same price as current print eds and no longer giving content away on the web, but that’s fantasy. They’ll sell a few copies that way but nothing like what they used to sell on paper, and they’ll have to still give content away on the web (the tablet will be great at accessing the web as well as ebooks and emags). And they still won’t be getting anything like the ad revenue from e-versions of their stuff that they’re used to from print (how many multi-thousand dollar full-page ads are they going to sell on an emag edition of the New Yorker or Vogue? Bubkis; they’ll have to sell ads way, way cheaper than that). Most print magazines get like 80+% of their revenue from ads, the newstand sales and subs are a small fraction of their total revenue, no tablet can bring back that ad money.
But apple never markets to big media. They market to home users. iPods aren’t sold to big media, they provide a medium for media to connect to the home user. Macs are great hardware, but Apple has never tried to develop the commercial market. They don’t care about it. It’s easier to focus on home use.
So, if it doesn’t work in the office, Apple won’t care.
I quickly scanned through the comments posted so far. I sure can tell your early birds don’t bother with the DrudgeReport. :^)
Ol’ Matt just loves to red-headline this “kind” of story:
NEWSDAY Doomsday: Only 35 Subscribers for Paid Online Content…
What did you say, Cringe, that people won’t pay for…? :^) That’s right!
Did you figure that out on your own or did Matt tip you off a few years back? (Just kidding!)
I enjoyed the article and think it is correct. And bravo for continuing to reinvent yourself over the years (though I am uninterested in reading your real estate blog…but it about being ahead of the curve, diversification and agile bets, right?)
Still left the question of Apple’s big datacenter North Carolina hanging out there.
The big media is just one other way to build consumer trust to get data up into the big cloud.
Whatever they come up with, probably will lead to:
Time machine into the cloud
Itunes in the cloud
iPhoto and Aperture sets in the cloud
Garage band … etc.
So, what rhymes with new york times? I have been trying to figure out what rhymes with it and can’t come up with anything!
“but then I’m getting more than a million page-views per month.”
I’m calling bullshit on this.
Alexa is showing your domain at #85,655. My blog has a higher rank (#59,384) and I get about 50K pageviews a month.
Compete says you get about 40-50K pageviews a month. Compete is showing too low for me, but even doubling that doesn’t get you anywhere close to 1M.
You also wouldn’t be able to survive on a $49 VPS with 1M pageviews per month on a WordPress blog. (Former hosting company CEO here.)
-Erica
Sorry Erica –
We get 50k page views a DAY and we are not in Alexa’s top 100,000. The demographic that uses the alexa toolbar is simply not representative of web users overall. Do you have alexa installed on your browser? Thought not.
Yes, I have Alexa installed.
Several months ago Alexa stopped using only the toolbar rankings to figure out site rankings. Read their news.
In case that isn’t proof enough, I cited Compete too, although Compete shows low for my site, so I doubled Compete’s numbers.
Bob hasn’t replied. Telling.
-Erica
I agree that one product will not save big media, but I think it will help pave the way for paid news content on the internet. I think this iproduct could be looked at like a cable box. TV used to be “free” but people are now willing to pay. They get it through a cable box and will eventually get it through the internets and will happily pay for quality content. I always see tech columnists say people won’t pay for stuff on the internet but the fact of the matter is that about 95% of internet content is cruft and people won’t pay for garbage. But I am guessing that people will pay for quality. Quality news requires reporters and hard work and people need to pay for a sustained quality product. I also think part of the reason people say they won’t pay for internet content is because Big Media wants to charge the same as if they were still printing on paper as Mr. Cringley states. This defies everyones notion of progress, technology and fair cost. Technology increases efficiency and should reduce price. I think most people feel ripped off when they don’t see obvious savings with electronic content. There will always be people who think internet content should be free. These are the same people who wouldn’t understand that the when they don’t pay a fair price for an album or single from their favorite band they are pushing that band one step closer to extinction. After all, artists and reporters still need money to eat and live.
From your ( and others ) heads-up tips, it seems like another variation of subnotebook computer with great hardware.. Yippie ! Now what? buy a new pair of pants with larger pockets? How else should I carry it? ( and the KB + charger ). Just streching the brand thin.
It’s a shame that such a hype is built without proper criticism.
Anyway, that’s a game changer:
https://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense.
and Pranav Mistry is rumored to provide open source.
[…] coming and it was unavoidable. Publishers want high margins to maintain their cushy lifestyles. Apple just woke them up to the new reality. IT'S CALLED STICKING IT TO THE MAN AND NOT THE CUSTOMER Posted by Lastangelman at 3:45 […]
Overhead, you say??? Overhead kills every company, and most owners/parasitic managers don’t care. They’re intent is to run the thing into the ground. Period. Most companies, either overtly or covertly, take profit (either as named profit or management compensation) UP FRONT and leave the rest to the serfs to stretch to meet production. By the time the enterprise dies, the owners/parasitic managers have enough stashed away that the failure of the enterprise is irrelevant.
Now you know why listening to those Banksters whine about losing their jobs and reputations if their precious companies go belly up is so vomit inducing.
The Battle For Hearts and Minds
Just prior to the microprocessor revolution, in the early ’70s, Hewlett-Packard and Tektronics were in a battle to be *the* ocilloscope provider to the world’s electronics corporations. One tactic was ocilloscope placement into the nation’s universities, with the thinking that what the college kids were comfortable with would drive corporate purchases when those kids graduated to corporate employment.
Is Apple on the same thinking?
“Big Media wants revenue approaching what they could charge if a web site was a printed magazine.”
Well there’s your problem right there!
It isn’t up to any company, big or small, to “want” anything. That’s the customer’s prerogative! Companies are servants, not masters.
You can’t tell me you really believe this? Sure, this is occasionally true, but generally, nothing could be farther from the truth. Are you living on the same continent the rest of us are?
“Big Media wants revenue approaching what they could charge if a web site was a printed magazine.”
Well there’s your problem right there!
It isn’t up to any company, big or small, to “want” anything. That’s the customer’s prerogative! Companies are servants, not masters
No one’s talking about the size of the thing. It’s between an iPhone and a tiny TV. Who’s going to want to lug around something bigger than an iPhone? It will have to be carried around in a backpack.
Who’s going to want to watch video on something the size of a hardback book? Games and Web pages can be designed for small screens, but not video. If they were selling spectacles with a video input and a large virtual screen then maybe I’d be interested. But spectacles would block your view of your surroundings. Not good when you’re on the move. But if you have to be still, then you want a huge TV for video.
This will have it’s special uses and users, but will not be universally popular.
It’s about the size of a Kindle. So I agree, unlikely to be a universal, everybody carries it, all the time whether they need it or not, device. But it wouldn’t be too burdensome to carry when you need it. Much less so than a laptop–again, like a book, or like the Kindle.
I think you are on to something with the backpack comment–it would work well for students. Also women who are carrying large-ish purses. It could be a convenient thing to keep in the car, so it is available whenever needed.
[…] many observers have noted (including Robert X. Cringley in a recent blog post), the biggest problem that traditional media entities have right now is a cost base and production […]
[…] many observers have noted (including Robert X. Cringley in a recent blog post), the biggest problem that traditional media entities have right now is a cost base and production […]
[…] the product can be re-manufactured within weeks. One of these people was Cringely, who has been writing about tablets recently, only later to reveal that he had been “beta testing the Apple tablet for the past two […]
[…] I, Cringely » Blog Archive » The Problem With Big Media: Why One … […]
PBS == State Run Media.
Defund them.
Where do people find the time to play with these things? Why do people like to go to Starbucks to sit around and show off their new toys when they can do this in the comfort of their own homes?
I’ve been seeing some interesting reports on how this new, constantly connected, always on, information at your fingertips society is actually making us as a collective, inattentive and less prepared to deal with the social interactions necessary to perform as socially adaptive human beings.
Interesting.
John, your comment makes the most sense out of anyone’s here. Nicely said. People will pay for content if it’s good quality. That’s the bottom line. The internet is full of crap…let’s say 90% of it is crap. And no one’s willing to pay for crap, that’s a given. But if the NYT produce well researched articles, as they do, by quality writers, as they do, why wouldn’t you pay for it? Because you can read some sh*tty blogger’s rehash of the news?? Good for you. If that’s what you want. But some of us want quality news, quality commentary – not cheap posts written by some drop out sitting in his underpants at home. And we’ll pay for it…for those who won’t, you can keep reading stuff by underapants.
Look for the good not the evil in the conduct of members of the family.
One should go invited to a friend in good fortune and uninvited in misfortune.
Any individual find out how to discover iphone ?
Hi,
“Big Media wants revenue approaching what they could charge if a web site was a printed magazine.”
quote it . its not for the company but for the customers.
Lucky i uncovered this site, will be sure to bookmark it so i can come by routinely.
Amazing webpage, keep myself from looking it, I will be seriously serious to learn much more about it.
excellent writing skills & also I just had a quick question for you.. is this a WP theme blog or is it a different theme? I really like the design
This is such a excellent resource that you are supplying and you give it away for free. I love seeing websites that realize the worth of supplying a high quality resource for free. Thanks for this wonderful source of information!
Thank you……
In a world where the rate of employment is non-existent , careers within the arts, such as in acting, are more and more likely to repay. The key is that, like in any career, you need to work challenging to succeed. Actors have a chance to develop funct…
Me and my friend were arguing about an issue similar to this! Now I know that I was right. lol! Thanks for the information you post.you sill have
Thanks for the tips!…
[..]Found another resource for PAID OFFERS on your site, Hope you don’t mind if I link my siteto it.[..]…
Sorry for the accounting, but I’m really smitten the new Zune, and this, as well as the superior reviews whatever different people acquire graphic, instrument work you resolve if it’s the reactionist select for you.
Sorry for the accounting, but I’m really smitten the new Zune, and this, as well as the superior reviews whatever different people acquire graphic, instrument work you resolve if it’s the reactionist select for you.
Thank you! You usually publish quite fascinating content articles. You enhanced my mood.
Fantastic details. I’ve bookmarked this internet site.
Magic Mont Blanc Ballpoint Pen X is a precision writing instrument that features a hard-anodized aerospace-grade aluminum body with a stainless steel clip/ tip. The makes a wonderful business gift that will be appreciated and cherished.
In the event you unique hotel Mulberry in the event you acquire on the sale made
Hey not to go off topic but can anyone give me a review of. New York Car Insurance Reform 295 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10007 (646) 351-0824 They’re just down the block with me. I was wondering if they were a good insurance company. I need to get hold of coverage, it is the law you know, but I need to have a good price price plus I want friendly service.
dIuhTs http://louisvuittonoutletcoupon.us/
Movie Trailer
Don’t arrange to any product unless you local plumber because unfortunately, individuals many inferior dietary supplements available for sale. Also, one of the crucial trusted info your own needs to be recommendations. There are weight-loss message boards online so that you could explore this topic with a person, your notions on items and also of diet concerns. Discover info regarding this subject and pay attention to the ndividuals are saying regarding the best-selling somekeyword in the marketplace.
http://knights.wall.fm/blogs/user/Christophe
how to lose water weight fast