Here is the News-paper

Craig Mod: So why do so many of our digital magazines publish on the same schedule, with the same number of articles as their print counterparts? Using the same covers? Of course, they do because it’s easier to maintain identical schedules across mediums. To not design twice. To not test twice (or, at all). Unfortunately … Continue reading “Here is the News-paper”

Craig Mod:

So why do so many of our digital magazines publish on the same schedule, with the same number of articles as their print counterparts? Using the same covers? Of course, they do because it’s easier to maintain identical schedules across mediums. To not design twice. To not test twice (or, at all).

Unfortunately — from a medium-specific user experience point of view — it’s almost impossible to produce a digitally indigenous magazine beholden to those legacy constraints. Why? Not least because we use tablets and smartphones very differently than we use printed publications.

I have had conversations along this line for the last few months with folk like Lyra McKee and the talented lads at Starfish (who have just launched TapBrochures.

Legacy is the single biggest issue for newspapers. They do things because they have always done them. They charge meaningless amounts of money for their newspaper, relying on circulation to pay the bills through advertising (and they have complicated, misleading methodologies on counting that circulation).

They have deadlines set by the mechanisms of printing, the movement of vans and the opening hours of newsagents.

How stupid is that?

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