Tool twist newsletter 2010

In This Issue
- Web Typography
- ToolTwist: When used on Software Development
- What’s New in ToolTwist v7
- Do You Need a Mobile Strategy?
- HR’s Role in Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility
- My iPad Magazine Stand

1

This article discusses how web browsers support fonts and how using several
techniques modern web browsers can be more flexible in the support of more
traditional fonts that print media are comfortable with.

history
The first edition of web browsers in the (publisher) along-with the web page. This
early nineties had minimal support for technique is widely referred to as the @font-
fonts. Web browsers then controlled the face rule. This technique is controversial,
fonts by their own settings. Later on in as licensing issues are prevalent. The font
the mid-nineties, browser enabled support licensing terms had not caught up with the
for a <font> html tag allowed webmasters fact that they can be downloaded and used
and publishers to control the font that web over the web. This issue is slowly being
pages would display. However, either the corrected by the major font foundries
font in question had to have been already modifying the licensing schemes to allow
installed on the computer; or a standard fall webfonts distribution schemes.
back font as supplied by that computer ’s
operating system.

In the late nineties, the concept of a ‘web-
safe’ font was widely discussed. These
were the fonts that were more likely to
be present on a wide range of computer
systems. At the same time, Microsoft
started core fonts for the web initiative that
saw a standard pack of fonts released to
be used by all web browsers and operating
systems. These standard packs of ten
fonts were widely adopted and licensed by
various manufacturers.

In the last few years, CSS2 (Cascading
Style Sheets version2) added support for
a technique that allowed the downloading
of remote fonts as supplied by the server

T ypogr aph y arT by W ob 2 l e r

To o l Tw i s t N e w sl e tte r // Issu e No.1 // Decem ber 2010

2

Glossary

eOT
embedded OpentYpe
A form of OpenType font designed by Microsoft for use as embedded fonts on web
pages. It is supported by Internet Explorer and unfortunately not widely support by
other browsers.

T TF/OTF
trUe tYpe Or Open tYpe
A scalable computer font, originally licensed from Apple by Microsoft, but
further developed by both Adobe and Microsoft. Most of the medium-age
browsers have support for them. A medium-age browser is 2 to 3 years old.

WOFF
Web Open FOnt FOrmat
A recent initiative, this is a font format developed by the World Wide Web consortium
and has very good support among the major font foundries and new-age browsers.
This is basically an OpenType font with enhanced meta-data.

traditional work
arounds of yesteryears
For more than the past decade, webmasters between images and text.
and publishers have had to get around the Implementing this technique means it
limitations mentioned above of using only breaks regular text selection and copy and
a standard set of fonts on webpages. The paste.
most common ways to get around this is
by using images of fonts, using Adobe sIFR - scalable Inman Flash
Flash embeddables (sIFR) and Javascript
techniques to display custom fonts. All of
ReplacemenT
This is a dynamic web fonts implementation
them come with various limitations and
that enables replacement of text elements
performance issues.
of web pages with Flash equivalents. It

Images is widely used by brochure ware sites
and a lot of design companies favor this
The easiest way to put custom fonts on
approach. This approach does have the
a webpage. Take Photoshop, put your
same faults as the images technique,
custom font in as a text box, save it as an
though publishing has been made easier
image and put it up. The limitations are
with some tools. Lately with the wide
that images take much longer to download
adoption of Apple iPhone and iPad devices
to a web page, and while this technique is
which don’t support Flash, this technique
good for a heading or so, large swathes of
is now completely unworkable across
text cannot be done this way. It also breaks
these devices.
the whole publishing cycle by switching

Tool Tw i s t N ew s l etter // Is s ue N o.1 // De c e mb e r 2 0 1 0

3

It is to be noted that all three techniques
cuFOn above suffer from various performance
This is a technique that seeks to be an issues as well as they don’t support regular
alternative to sIFR. It uses Javascript text selection and copy and paste.
and Vector Markup Language (VML) to
convert the font using a font generator
into a Javascript friendly file that is
rendered using Javascript code on the
web browser.

status of webfonts
now and the future
Webfonts as mentioned above are the
future of fonts in web pages. These are
F O n T D e ck
http://fontdeck.com/
font files that can be embedded onto
webpages in websites using the @font-
face rule. Since 2007 and 2008, most of F O n T s pRI n g
http://www.fontspring.com/
the newer browser from Safari, Firefox,
Chrome, Opera and to a certain extent IE
now support this technique. It is actually T y pe F RO n T
being widely used again.
http://typefront.com/

This brings the question, of how would W e b T y pe
you use commercial fonts embedded in http://www.webtype.com/
a website as they are publicly available
to everyone and get around the licensing T y pOT h e q u e
issues. Generally you would need to check http://www.typotheque.com/
the licensing agreements of the fonts from
the font vendor to see if it is ok to embed WebInk
the font and make it available publicly on h t t p : / / w w w. e x t e n s i s . c o m / e n /
a web server. There are list of public fonts WebINK/
and commercial fonts that allow being
embedded on a website. Ju sT a n OT h e R F O u n D Ry
http://justanotherfoundry.com/
The other option is to subscribe to a cloud-
based font service that for a small fee k e Rn e sT
allows hundreds of fonts to be embedded http://kernest.com/
on to a website. Some popular webfont
services are: These services allow the fonts to be
served from a distributed CDN (Content
TypekI T Distribution Network) and thus offer the
advantages of being cacheable across
http://typekit.com/
websites etc. Thus, if one is looking to use
FO nTsl Iv e this service, research needs to be done on
the number of fonts supported. Plus, how
http://www.fontslive.com/
popular the service is among the peers,

g O Og le F On T DIR ecTOR y
http://code.google.com/webfonts


4

how does tooltwist conclusion
advance this for
the publisher While ToolTwist offers a wide range of
functionality for the publisher to embed
custom fonts on to the webpage and their
ToolTwist offers a variety of support to make websites, the following considerations
it easy for the publisher to deliver pages should be taken into account when the
with support for custom fonts. Widgets for requirements are drawn up.
most of the popular webfont services are
freely available, plus the ability to embed • What are the requirements for compatibility
custom licensed fonts directly on to the web of the website, business-wise. Targeting
server. More importantly, ToolTwist has
modern browsers only?
the ability to fallback to more traditional
• What are the requirements for fallback if
means if it detects that a browser does not
targeting all browsers.
have the ability to support webfonts.
• Font licensing considerations.
ToolTwist routing modules can automatically • If using a webfonts service, check if their
detect the device and browser type and list does support all the fonts you may
allows for fallback fonts to ensure that need.
pages are read on older devices. In • Think about the potential for layout
certain extreme cases, publishes do have changes as fallback options are
the opportunity to present completely considered.
different layouts depending on support for
older and modern browsers and what the
requirements for website consumption is.

T ypogr aph y arT by d ou glas W ils o n


ToolTwist
as used for
Software Development

As a software development tool, ToolTwist provides a development environment that
accelerates application development, by extending the capabilities of regular Java.

Why extend Java? While Java is a rock-solid
upon which to develop an application –
platform for enterprise-level applications,
they don’t form part of the application.
it is not itself an application. Like with
.NET, Visual Basic, and other popular
There are many types of application,
development tools, Java is a language
and there are many possible parts of an
and software development platform – if
application. However, applications such
you want an application, then you need to
as those in use at a typical enterprise will
write the program yourself.
typically have the following parts:

In most traditional software development
1. A User Interface. In the past this has
environments, tools are provided upon
been a windows interface, but for cost
which to write applications. These tools
and reliability reasons, applications are
are generic in nature, and provide a
increasingly being built with a web browser
way to program (the IDE), provide basic
based interface and run over the Internet.
underlying functionality and access to the
operating system (APIs), and provide a
2. Application specific logic. These are
way to debug applications.
the calculations such as stock updates,
Products such as .NET, Java and VB6
stock calculations, benefit calculations,
however need to be generic in nature, as
processing eftpos and pos calculations,
they are required to be able to be used to
totalling and even day-to-day reports
build any type of application. As a result,
calculations such as summaries and
they are intended to provide a foundation
totals.


6

3. Communications logic to transfer data Use of these traditional tools is part of the
between various entities. reason why a typical Enterprise’s IT costs
are high, and why development output is
4. Data Manipulation code, to handle low.
various types of information – products,
sales statistics, invoices etc. ToolTwist builds upon this traditional model,
to build a specific type of application:
5. Database Access code that instructs - Web browser based.
the program how to get to data in the - Requires manipulation of varying data
database. types.
- Distributed environment.
With these traditional development tools, - Stores data in a relational database.
developers must build all these parts of
the application themselves, a process For this specific type of application,
of labor intensive manual coding. This ToolTwist is able to provide pre-formed
work requires a high level of skill, and is parts of the application, and provide tools
therefore very expensive. It is also the that generate other parts of the application,
point where bugs are introduced. as shown in figure below.

For each type of application logic, removes the need for developers to write
ToolTwist specifically provides a way to software.
speed up development.
The result is faster development times,
The following sections explain how low costs, and more reliable systems.
ToolTwist handles each type of logic, and


7

USer inTerface
In the 1980s, the user interface was green is just the start. Increasingly tablets and
screen CRTs and/or DOS based systems, other portable devices will be used as
while in the 90s a Windows interface was Point Of Sale devices, and will be used in
most common. For the past ten years retail settings.
however, the preferred interface has been
to use a web browser, even for applications Different people access these systems in
that do not need to run over the Internet. a variety of ways, for varying purposes. In
The reason for this is that users are many cases, the technologies used, and
familiar with web pages, with their nice the need to have “programmers”, reduce
layouts, pretty images, and hyperlinks. the effective use of these systems.
These users are easily trained as this is
what they use in their normal day-to-day As an illustration… a typical enterprise has
lives. brochures produced by graphic artists, it
has a corporate website created by web
Browser based interfaces also have the designers, and it has software in the
advantage that it is not necessary to install Pharmacies developed by programmers.
software to use the application – it can be The separation in skills (graphic art, web
accessed over local area network, or over design, and programming) has prevented
the Internet. It can also be easily skinned, work in one area flowing into other areas
(i.e.) the same application having multiple resulting in:
different skins over it to present different
faces of it to different users. This allows • The corporate website is grossly out
the users to retain familiarity with a type of date.
of interface. • Marketing messages and product
features included in the The software
There are two trends that will increase the provides the end users and clients with
benefits of browser based applications: the no relevancy to their day to day task
steadily increasing speed and reliability at hand.
of the Internet and the arrival of mobile • Programmers producing the
devices. While the iPad is currently being software and the marketing message
positioned as a consumer product, this are disjoint.


8


What’s New in

ToolTwist 7
ver
Deployment improvements
The ToolTwist controller has been adapted to
do seamless application deployment to the
Cloud, Enterprise Server, off-the-shelf Virtual
machines and other machine configurations.
Once setup, application deployment becomes
a click-and-go process that can be programmed
for continuous Integration Builds as well as
Production control handovers of Production
releases.

Designer Checkin/Checkout
Pages can be checked in and out of the
controller with locking at the controller level
to handle version changes and version
differences. A diff tool helps the designers to
work out differences between their copy and
the copy on the controller. new widgets
• Blog widget
CDn deployment • VideoJS widgets for HTML5 video fallback.
Static assets on a web page such as images, • FusionCharts widget
css stylesheet files, javascript code can be • Multiple menu widgets
automatically deployed to the CDN. CDN's • Payment gateway plugins for Authorize.NET
supported are RackSpace/LimeLight CDN and • Multiple mapping widgets for Google
CacheFly CDN. More CDN's to be supported Maps, Bing Maps with layering and polygon
as demand is present. functionality.


Domain sharding
ToolTwist can automatically send static
assets to multiple static domain sites, so
as to improve the parallel performance of
downloading to a web browser. A web browser
normally downloads anywhere between 2 to
8 assets from a single domain depending on
the browser version. By separating your static
assets to multiple domains, more assets can be
downloaded in parallel. In addition, by making
these domains cookie-free, the overhead of
transmitting cookies for each http request can
be avoided.

Wpo hints for
progressive rendering
WPO, Web Performance Optimisation is the
hot topic of the year. ToolTwist provides most
of the capabilities to produce the fastest site
possible within the constraints of the design
and the artwork. With Version 7, more control
is given to the marketer to place markers
mobile Designer
where the visible portion of the page ends, and
The Designer has a template and supporting
the ToolTwist generator will optimise to put all
libraries for the mobile web. Need we say more!
blocking and time-consuming assets below
the marker to ensure that the visible portion
renders as fast as possible.


11

Let me provide you some statistics first…

there are1.5 billion Internet connections on the world today
the world’s population is 6.8 billion

the number of folks in the world having mobile devices are 3.4 billion (@50%)

of these people, the number of potential mobile internet users are 1.3 billion

The rate of growth of smart mobile devices You have employed some Objective-C
is astounding. Already people who own gurus to turn out great looking apps.
mobile devices are more likely to use their You may have invested in cross-compiler
mobile to browse the internet rather than platforms such as Titanium or PhoneGap
their desktop. This figure is as high as 40% to deliver products to the iOS and Android
now. This figure will be more skewed as markepaces. Or you may be large enough
tablet adoption becomes more universal. to run separate teams with different skills
to do Objective-C on iOS, Java on Android,
So, what does an enterprising CIO do? Sliverlight/XNA/C++ on Windows Mobile 7,
Develop an app! and the various other different languages
and SDK’s on Symbian, Maemo, Palm
Apple with their iOS strategy have webOS, Blackberry and so on.
successfully ‘appified’ the market space.
Apps are a great way to experience the But, the important thing to consider is:
richness of the mobile device with some Safari is the most popular app on the
beautiful games and applications turning iPhone!
the simple mobile device effectively into a
mobile computer. Don’t assume customers have downloaded
your app.
But, is that the strategy?


12

Irrespective of if your strategy is to build Thus, irrespective of your mobile
an app or not, expect that people will use applications strategy….
a mobile browser, a small format device to …. Don’t ignore the mobile web.
visit your website. They are mobile, out and Why? In a year ’s time by the end of 2011,
about. They hear about your business, or there won’t be a mobile web strategy
a promotion on your website and will use anymore, it will be the only strategy!
their mobile device to visit your website.
Or as it is more common now, people use ToolTwist can help you present screens
Google to search for your name to visit appropriate to the device format the
your website. (i.e.) no one enters a URL customer visits your website with. It is not
anymore. black magic, but by simply making it easy
for marketing teams to design mobile web
When that happens… think about it, are pages for the mobile web, you can provide
you presenting content appropriate to that the optimum experience to your customers
small screen. Is your website downloading rather than trying to shoe-horn a desktop
megabytes of content and images down a web experience to a mobile user.
slow 3G network with high latency down to
a customer ’s device who may be struggling In conclusion, let me leave you with these
with reception issues and desperate to thoughts…. What about the other end of the
get the page up and fast? Are you forcing scale? Large format screens. GoogleTV
your customers to pinch and zoom to for example. You need to optimize your
view content and press appropriate links website for 40 to 50” screen with the viewer
and buttons to navigate between pages? 10 feet away. Do you have a strategy for
A customer who is likely to use a mobile that? Anticipate that in 2 years time, every
device to locate a bricks and mortar store TV will be able to access the Internet.
will experience difficulty to find store
locations and operating hours if you are
not presenting information on your website
tailored to the mobile format.


The world is a smaller place thanks to • Foster a culture of social
the Internet, global trading and new responsibility.
communication and technology advances • Celebrate successes.
such as the iPad and applications. More • Share and communicate the value
companies are becoming global by of corporate social responsibility to
expanding overseas, and now manage a employees and the community.
global workforce that has unique benefits,
rules/laws, and different languages and
currencies. With this global expansion
comes a “responsibility.” implemenT anD encoUrage green
pracTiceS for corporaTe
When companies are global, an important
challenge in garnering success is to respect
Social reSponSibiliTy
other cultures and workforce environments
and start forming a global profile or
social consciousness. Recognising these Implement green practices to assist in
differences with a sound Corporate environmental waste reduction, while
Social Responsibility (CSR) plan can promoting and encouraging stewardship
simultaneously increase shareholder growth, better corporate ethics and
value, boost employee engagement and long-lasting practices that promote both
increase employer brand recognition. personal and corporate accountability.
The value inherent in embracing green
Human Resource Departments play a aspects of corporate responsibility is
critical role in ensuring that the company clearly understood, given the direct impact
adopts Corporate Social Responsibility that rising energy and utility costs has on
programs. Furthermore, HR can employees’ pocketbooks. Conservation
manage the CSR plan implementation has become an accepted means of making
and monitor its adoption proactively, our planet healthier. Reducing each
while documenting (and celebrating) its employee’s carbon footprint is a great
success throughout the company. Human way of getting energy conservation and
Resources technology can help with a recycling waste initiatives off the ground.
Corporate Social Responsibility program, Here are suggestions to start:
including reducing the company’s carbon
footprint to benefit the planet. Start with • Recycle paper, cans and bottles
these areas: in the office; recognize departmental
• Implement and encourage green efforts.
practices.


14

• Collect food and donations for and employers at all levels, who competed
victims of floods, hurricanes and other for advancement and recognition in
natural disasters around the globe. harsh workplaces, were forced to accept
corporate misconduct and waste as
• Encourage reduced energy “business as usual.”
consumption; subsidize transit passes,
make it easy for employees to car pool, Social and community connections that are
encourage staggered staffing to allow encouraged by employers give employees
after rush hour transit, and permit permission to involve their companies
telecommuting to the degree possible. in meaningful ways with the community.
Employers can connect with their
• Encourage shutting off lights, employees and the community through:
computers and printers after work
hours and on weekends for further • Company matches to employee
energy reductions. charitable contributions;

• Work with IT to switch to laptops • Community programs and volunteer
over desktop computers. (Laptops days;
consume up to 90% less power.)
• Corporate sponsorship of community
• Increase the use of teleconferencing, events; and
rather than on-site meetings and trips.
• Encouraging employees to
• Promote brown-bagging in the participate in walkathons, food banks,
office to help employees reduce fat and so forth.
and calories to live healthier lives and
reduce packaging waste, too.

celebraTe corporaTe
foSTer a cUlTUre SUcceSSeS
of corporaTe
Celebrating success is important to
sustain the momentum of any CSR
Creating a culture of change and program. Involving company leaders, and
responsibility starts with HR. Getting the praising the success of these initiatives,
younger employees, who are already gives the program real meaning. In the
environmentally conscious, excited about rapidly expanding global workplace, the
fresh Corporate Social Responsibility celebration of these successes not only
initiatives is a great way to begin. A drives the implementation of Corporate
committed set of employees who infuse Social Responsibility initiatives, but also
enthusiasm for such programs would allows sound corporate HR practices to
enable friendly competition and recognition enable them.
programs.
Additionally the publicity about these
Over the past few years, major news successes creates a mutual understanding
organizations have reported on large, of the cultures within each region that the
trusted companies that have failed company serves. The local population
employees, shareholders and the public knows that, in addition to providing jobs,
(i.e. Enron, Lehman, WaMu). These the company takes an active interest in,
failures created a culture of mistrust in the and participates in, local issues.
corporate world. All too often, employees


15

Three Key areaS of
corporaTe Social
reSponSibiliTy

Focusing on three key areas for Corporate
Social Responsibility can help create a
cohesive map for the present and future:

• Community Relations,

• Training and Development, and

• A Cohesive Corporate Social
Responsibility Platform

Encouraging Community Relations through
your HR team includes implementing
reward programs, charitable contributions
and encouraging community involvement
and practices. Examples of these programs
include sending emails and company
newsletters to staff members that highlight
employees and managers involved in
community relations or creating monthly
reward programs to recognize efforts by
individuals within the company.

Training and Development programs
that explain the connection between the
company’s core products or services and
the society at large, their value to the local
community and ways in which employees
can get involved in appropriate CSR
projects would sustain and direct these
initiatives.


16

My iPad Magazine Stand
Author: Khoi Vinh

competition, particularly about
how user behavior will evolve
as these devices become more
integrated into daily life. So
while I may use some definitive
language in this admittedly very
long blog post, I freely grant that
the future is a mystery to me as
much as anyone.

Actually, in conversations
with people I know at various
publications, I’ve been quite
photo credits to Because I recently left a job surprised by stories of strong
Wired.com
at one of the most prominent advertiser interest in these apps.
publications in the world, people Anecdotally, publishers report
often ask me about my opinions heavy demand for advertising
on the cavalcade of publications space, and in some cases apps
rushing to the iPad — those have sold out of their ad inventory
apps designed and developed through the end of the year or
by newspapers and magazines even further.
principally to deliver their print
content — and the chances I see That’s an encouraging indicator,
for their success. So here it is. but I think it may be more a sign
of a bubble than the creation of a
To start, I think it’s too early to real market for publishers’ apps.
say anything definitive about According to Advertising Age,
whether these apps will become the initial enthusiasm for many
lasting delivery mechanisms for of these apps has dwindled down
print content and brands. There’s to as little as one percent of print
still a lot that we don’t know circulation in the cases of some
about the iPad and its forthcoming magazines.


17

READING HABITS few years, and so there will be a much
Granted, this situation could change richer market for a more diverse crop of
significantly when the iPad and tablet content. But even with an Apple-operated
market expands further — it’s logical to newsstand, I’m just not sure I believe
assume that the customers who eventually these people will turn to publishers’ apps
commit to tablets after this first year will to occupy their tablet time. It’s certainly
bring a greater diversity of interests than possible that a small number of these apps
the generally technology-centric early will succeed, but if publishers continue to
adopters. If we see a continuing influx pursue the print-centric strategies they’re
of customers in that former category, it focused on today, I’m willing to bet that
might brighten the prospects for, say, most of them will fail.
Vanity Fair’s iPad app. That, combined
with the possibility of Apple adding a Let’s set aside the issue of news apps for
digital newsstand to the App Store to help the time being, because they are really a
customers browse periodical content in a beast of a different sort, and with their
centralized place (hunting for publications own unique challenges. There is a real use
amid software brands is suboptimal, to case for news apps (regardless of whether
say the least) could further brighten their not not any players are executing well in
prospects. this space). Magazine apps, on the other
hand, are a different story.
Maybe.

I just don’t
see it, though.
For sure, I’m
confident that
many, many
more people will
be buying tablets
within the next

photo credits to
http://mediamemo.
allthingsd.com/


18

OKAY HERE IT IS print edition and, as a content experience,
My opinion about iPad-based magazines was an impediment to my normal content
is that they run counter to how people consumption habits. I couldn’t email,
use tablets today and, unless something blog, tweet or quote from the app, to say
changes, will remain at odds with the way nothing of linking away to other sources
people will use tablets as the medium — for magazine apps like these, the world
matures. They’re bloated, user-unfriendly outside is just a rumor to be denied. And
and map to a tired pattern of mass when I plugged my iPad back into my
media brands trying vainly to establish Mac, the enormous digital heft of these
beachheads on new platforms without magazines brought the synching process
really understanding the platforms at all. to a crawl.

The fact of the matter is that the mode My understanding is that a lot of these apps
of reading that a magazine represents are being actively encouraged and even
is a mode that people are decreasingly partially funded by the folks at Adobe, who
interested in, that is making less and less are pushing a tablet publishing solution
sense as we forge further into this century, that, unsurprisingly, builds off of the
and that makes almost no sense on a tablet. software franchise that they won over the
As usual, these publishers require users to print publishing world with. In fact, Conde
dive into environments that only negligibly Nast has turned over technical operations
acknowledge the world outside of their for all of their apps to Adobe, which says a
brand, if at all — a problem that’s abetted lot about how they’re thinking about their
and exacerbated by the full-screen, single- tablet strategy.
window posture of all iPad software. In
a media world that looks increasingly The Adobe promise, as I understand it,
like the busy downtown heart of a city — is that publications can design for one
with innumerable activities, events and medium and, with minimal effort, have
alternative sources of distraction around their work product viably running on tablets
you — these apps demand that you confine and other media. It says: what works in
yourself to a remote, suburban cul-de-sac. print, with some slight modifications and
some new software purchases, will work
THICK ISSUES in new media. It’s a promise that we’ve
Take the recent release of the iPad app heard again and again from many different
version of The New Yorker. Please. I software vendors with the rise of every
downloaded an issue a few weeks ago and new publishing platform, but it has never
greatly enjoyed every single word of every come to pass. And it never will.
article that I read (whatever the product
experience, the journalism remains a notch In my personal opinion, Adobe is doing a
above). But I hated everything else about tremendous disservice to the publishing
it: it took way too long to download, cost industry by encouraging these ineptly
me US$4.99 over and above the annual literal translations of print publications
subscription fee that I already pay for the


19

into iPad apps. They’ve fostered a tablets represent. Perhaps like many of
preoccupation with the sort of monolithic, us, they need to fail their way to success.
overbearing apps represented by The That’s a legitimate strategy, and if they’re
New Yorker, Wired and Popular Science. nimble enough to recover from these wild
Meanwhile, what publishers should miscalculations before it’s too late, then I
really be focusing on is clever, nimble, applaud them for it.
entertaining apps like EW’s Must List
or Gourmet Live. Neither of those are More likely, they will waste too many cycles
perfect, but both actively understand that on this chimerical vision of resuscitating
they must translate their print editions into lost glories. And as they do, the concept
a utilitarian complement to their users’ of a magazine will be replaced in the mind
content consumption habits. — and attention span — of consumers by
something along the lines of Flipboard.
IF NOT THIS, THEN WHAT? If you ask me, the trajectory of content
Of course, small, nimble apps won’t consumption favors apps like these that
necessarily solve the long-term revenue are more of a window to the world at large
problems of major magazines. So is there than a cul-de-sac of denial. Social media,
a bigger solution for magazines, one that if it’s not already obvious to everyone, is
will bring in significant revenue along the going to continue to change everything
lines of what they saw in the pre-digital — including publishing. And it’s a no-
world? brainer to me that content consumption is
going to be intimately if not inextricably
This is an incredibly difficult question and linked with your social graph. Combine
I’ve stopped trying to pretend I have any Flipboard or whatever comes along and
response to it other than “I don’t know,” improves upon it with the real innovation
or, in less sanguine moments, “Probably in recommendation technology that we’ll
not.” There are no easy answers for content almost undoubtedly see in the next few
publishers right now, which is why in years, and I can’t see how the 20th Century
some ways they can hardly be blamed for concept of a magazine can survive, even if
their iPad enthusiasm — at the very least, it does look great on a tablet.
they aren’t ignoring the sea change that


Tool twist newsletter 2010

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