There are essentially two primary uses for the iOS for those involved in graphic arts. One is functional and easy to use, whereas the second is under developed and requires imagination.
The first use, as a device to consume media, is highly pragmatic. Both iPhones and iPads are perfect for quickly finding information because they are compact, instant-on, and wireless.
The second use, as a mobile e-commerce platform, could be highly profitable. A thoughtful app for iOS could send a stream of pictures, blogs, postcards, memory books, transcripts, forms, and more print ready material to your print shop.
The trouble, of course, is that developing an app or coming up with an e-commerce strategy is like producing a movie. Both require a storyboard with a beginning, middle, and an end (plus a healthy dose of IT). Are you going to put on your director's hat?
The audience, if you were curious, will continue to grow according to these plans.
Shoutback: How do you think the App Stores will play a role in print media?
QR Codes are a necessary step in the evolution of connecting digital and physical worlds but, in the end, are just a footnote in where the overall technology is heading. One replacement could be found in the previously mentioned RFID-smartphone-location aware-augmented reality ecosystem. A more immediate solution could be found in interpreting a picture, analyzing through tags, and then retrieving important search criteria.
For example, a picture taken while waiting at the grocery store checkout to be cross analyzed with other known pictures and tags to root out that the item is a Snickers candy bar. Once the object, or candy bar, is recognized a list of voted on results (think Facebook's like feature) would appear — nutritional information, coupons, suggested pairings, etc.
Disparate technologies already exist to perform the individual functions. A few companies are starting to connect the dots, whether inadvertently or not. Google, according to the Barcoding blog, is slowly building out the technology through their Goggles initiative. Meanwhile, LTU Technologies is also putting the picture recognition technology into practical use at Dylan's Candy Bar in New York City.
Footnote: QR Codes are an inexpensive, ready-to-market technology that can be implemented today. Although better applications are on the way, QR Codes will probably have valid uses going forward. Just like books and the Kindle, it does not have to be a zero sum game.
The Social Photo Book does not exist yet. The infrastructure and technology are readily available, so it is only a matter of time before this type of application comes to market. The company who can provide the best and simplest user experience wins.
Both Personera and Group Story share some aspects of the Social Photo Book and could add the remaining pieces.
Smile. Photography was forever changed due to the migration to digital cameras. Not limited by the scarcity of film, we take more pictures than the Hollywood paparazzi or so it would seem. The problem, of course, is that after the initial glance these photos go into the digital abyss never to be seen again.
Luckily, photo books come to the rescue by reintroducing scarcity and permanence — scarcity derived through the number of pages and page sizes, and permanence from a physical copy. Photo books are created to read, reflect, and treasure in a form factor made for zero effort sharing. DIY'ers, scrapbookers, and those looking for a gift or keepsake, have pushed the total market for photo books to an estimated $500 million for 2009. As such, photo books have become a growing segment of the digital printing market.
Now imagine how ludicrous it would be if a high-roller gambler walked away from a Vegas craps table without picking up all of his winnings. That is the dirty little secret of the photo book industry as of now. Why? Up to half in 2008 and one-third in 2009 of those who started the creative aspects of designing a photo book abandoned the effort according to the PMA. After starting, many probably find themselves overwhelmed with finding, uploading, and editing the photos much less choosing a layout and copy to go with them.
Since most photo books depict specific, shared events, why can photo book creation not also be a shared activity?
The Social Photo Book Scenario (football game)
Photos taken by multiple people at the same football game
Photos of the game are uploaded and tagged to each user's preferred service: Facebook, Flickr, Shutterfly, etc.
Invites go out over the user's social network to add more photos and collaborate
The social photo book service aggregates & organizes photos from all sources (where APIs exist)
Everyone begins to build their individual pages and attach their text, etc.
Pages can be mixed and matched to create the best, final result
The sheer act of including a social aspect to creating the photo books from everyone's unique perspective to the same shared event(s) ups the ante and follow through. Photo book clubs, anyone?
Have you ever wondered if there is a better way to sell underwear than to use supermodels in racy poses? Calvin Klein does. The company recently put up billboards with nothing more than a QR code. Calvin Klein's campaign, on display for a limited time, is just another
example of using QR codes to track and test a mass media campaign. The thought, and probably not a bad one, is that the simplicity of the billboard will stand out amongst the other advertisements that are screaming for your attention. The tag line "Get It Uncensored" will definitely piques the interest of those walking down the street.
Instead of trying to push an agenda or selling a product, what if the QR acted as a conduit for a greater good or civic purpose? What could QR codes do if used for more altruistic instead of novelty purposes?
QR for easy-to-use, non-profit donations (SMS has already been a hit.)
QR at the bar for the local cab company
QR for Foursquare check-ins for accountability to AA, Weight Watchers, etc.
QR on road signage to connect with police, fire, or ambulatory services
Odds are you have seen the square shaped, funkier, hipper, cousin of the barcode — the QR Code. Quick Response codes are finally making a splash in the US market this year. Scan the codes with your smartphone to get a coupon, find information, locate a phone number, watch a movie, or whatever else mobile marketers have dreamt up. Marketers love the QR code since it can be where the consumer is and, better yet, be fully tracked with analytics.
For all of the greatness that QR codes posses, there are obvious weaknesses. Beyond needing a smartphone, which instantly eliminates 63% of today's mobile market according to Nielson, QR codes do not speak to you. The conversation, whatever information is behind the curtain, has to be requested by the consumer. Although this style of permissions based marketing cuts out the bullhorns of broadcast media, QR codes are still blind to the consumers existence unless called to action. For this reason, QR codes will be merely a transitional technology, albeit with a long shelf life to go.
A killer, mobile ecosystem is developing to replace QR. Separate technologies will eventually merge into a single platform that push information directly to consumers in the vicinity who allow it. RFID, radio frequency identification, tags along with immersive augmented reality can provide a better end user experience. Passive RFID tags with no battery can send a signal to a receiver, ala smartphone, if it is within range. Of course, powerful filters are needed to curate information pertinent to the individual instead of everything within range. All of this will allow for the interaction of a QR code without the burden of usability being dumped upon the consumer.
Accessibility and cost are slowing the possibilities of this potent combination. Smartphones are getting more versatile and powerful, as seen with the iPhone 4, and more smartphones are projected to be sold than traditional phones by 2011. Costs are also rapidly decreasing for not only smartphones, but more importantly for RFID tags due to more advance production techniques.
What do you think is the shelf life is for QR codes? Drop a comment below!
There was a lot of Apple fanfare last week as Steve Jobs and company (re)unveiled the iPhone 4. There was a much more significant announcement during Apple's World Wide Developer Conference keynote speech — iAds. Yes, apparently Apple wants has been inspired by the AMC televisions show Mad Men and is taking aim at the advertising industry. Maybe the announcement is just a culmination of their purchase of Quattro, a mobile advertising company, and ongoing battle with the Googlenaut.
(photo inspired by Mad Men)
Why iAds?
Apple Controlled Distribution
Apple Controlled Curation
60%/40% Revenue Split
Full Analytics for Advertisers
Integrated for coupons and barcodes
The iAd environment has many advantages for advertisers. Since the ads are distributed within approved Apple apps via iOS, the end user experience and back-end programming are consistent. The ads are more visually interrupting than text based ads with ample screen real estate at the bottom of the app, which should translate into more clickthroughs. Security for the user is enhanced through clear labeling as an "iAd" and lack of confusion from outbound links and links obscured by URL shorteners. Users can view the advertisement and seamlessly return to the application.
Having a more sophisticated mobile advertising platform as an option should speed marketers' adoption. Steve Jobs announced that Apple has secured commitments for about 50% of all mobile ad spending in the second half of 2010. This is significant considering the technology has not been released to the public. In the end, iAds represent another platform shifting advertising dollars away from print.
Tangible to Tangential Every second, on average, there are 700 Facebook updates, 600 tweets, and 55 Buzz posts. Every minute 24 hours worth of video is uploaded to YouTube. Over 1,400 blogs are started every hour (most are soon abandoned). Freely accessible technology has created a pop culture of creativity found on immeasurable channels of the Internet. Yet for all of the freedom of information and self expression that has been fostered, there are numerous sticky points yet to be addressed. The understated and glossed over book, however, will be the proving ground for the unanswered dilemmas of the great knowledge migration. The written, then printed word has been the bedrock of society's understanding, expression, and sentiment, for quite some time.
The modern era of book printing has been controlled by large publishing houses which vetted the content from a limited stable of authors, contracted the fabrication of the printed book, promoted the work to generate buzz and sales, and finally distributing the physical book through an impressive physical network. Now all of this is standing on its head. All of the previously mentioned self created content can now bypass the physical constraints of the publisher's infrastructure. Self publishing, through any number of sites such as Lulu, is now avant garde.
Liquid Stories Even books that are self published still abide by some of the old media rules, specifically a book's format. They are bound by the dimensional and physical constraints of pages and paper. E-readers, of course, are not bound by the physical limitations of static ink on paper. As such, the very notion of a "book" is starting on an evolutionary course not challenged in hundreds of years. The first step in this evolution will be little more than porting near exact replicas of magazines and books into some flavor of e-book specification.
Others will try to add engaging, interactive content to augment, supplement, or push the narrative into another realm past the possibilities of the written words. The possibilities are truly endless to integrate multimedia content, social networks, or anything else on the web, not to mention the physical form of the publication disappears. With a continuous supply of bits and bytes, the information can be presented in an endless ebb and flow of content or a liquid story, limited only by the creators wishes. At this critical point, the definition of "book" starts to lose the context of the original meaning as it starts to represent content in flux delivered from the Net. Sounds awfully similar to the definition of a webpage. Craig Mod, a Tokyo based book designer, nicely illustrates this concept of flowing content on his blog which as raised a lot of eyebrows and reactions.
Wired magazine, a Conde Naste publication, is trying to leverage this never ending architecture to enhance their original narrative through their recent launch of Wired for the iPad. Readers anted up $4.99 which is the same purchase price as the print edition. Coincidentally, or not, 24,000 digital copies were downloaded in the first 24 hours after release. Although this is a great first step, many of the purchases were probably influenced by the novelty factor and it still only represents 3.5% of Wired's total subscriber base. The following months will determine whether readers value the interactive content enough to continue great migration from paper to digital.
Page Rank Pressures Faced with the prospect of a never ending supply of "pages", will authors subconsciously start to alter their writing styles? Will verbose authors like JK Rowling or Stephen King start to write epic novels to rival the longest works in history? If so, will their be an audience willing to read such works? If we assume that the definition of "book" going forward more closely resembles that of a webpage, then the statistics paint a completely different picture.
All content on the Web is trying to be found. Search powerhouses such as Google, still struggle to keep up with such explosive growth from the mountains of user created content. This makes finding relevant information ever more daunting. SEO, or search engine optimization, is big business. The purpose of SEO is to game the search engines, in an increasingly complicated cat and mouse game, to get noticed and ranked high in the search engine's algorithm (the math used to find, sort, and dust off everything on the web in some logical presentation). The implications of gathering a higher page ranking are more far reaching than first apparent as the search engines are ultimately becoming our culture's curator. If Google likes you, then fame and fortune can follow. If Google dislikes you, stop while you are ahead.
By knowing the rules of the Web authors, and more likely publishers, may start to apply the same principles to game "book" sales. Authors may be influenced to write with a bias toward SEO keywords instead of staying true to the original concept. Words themselves could have less implication to a books overall success going forward as more Hollywood style production value creeps into the digital equivalent. Readers may be less apt to read if the delivery mechanism is video and audio with words as a footnote. Our reading experiences on the Web have already highlighted the degradation of the reading experience where information is skimmed, skipped, and surgically dissected (no doubt many have already given up on this post). The evolutionary steps being ushered in by e-readers and their new experimental forms of media might have already caused the tipping point for new reality. Think of a world in which the classics of literature are turned into nothing more than Dick and Jane books. The tipping point may be closer than we think.
The End has no End In our attention span deprived forays onto the Web, there is never a finality to the information that we search for and process. Similarly, authors who are unconstrained by the limitations of the final page count of a printed and bound book may also struggle with crafting the final chapter. Wikipedia, the world's largest base of encyclopedic knowledge, a prime example of constantly edited and tweaked information. A legion of self appointed experts, actually less than 2% of the site's overall visitors, create and update the entries. If newer or better information exists in the future, then anyone has the right and access to update the original content. Without the limitations of a physical book, what will keep authors from rewriting their own endings? The end has no end, really.
For Profit, for Posterity Once information is digital, it demands to be free. Free from cost. Free from restrictive access. Free from the constraints of copyrights and trademarks. Just ask the music industry. The transition from printed magazines and books will pose a similar issue. All of the e-readers now include their own copyright protection scheme through some form of DRM, or digital rights management. DRM has been proven to accomplish two things: frustrate the abiding consumer and challenge the hacker community to a duel. All sides loose. Copyright laws did not grow up during a digital age and, as such, are probably incompetent for today's applications. Regardless, this is an issue playing out in the courts with some of Google's book scanning attempts.
Digital content can easily be manipulated as in the previous example of Wikipedia. Lesser thought of, however, is the fact that digital content can simply disappear. Realizing the value of preserving digital communication, the US Library of Congress is preserving the most micro of chatter, Twitter tweets. Storage and retrieval of digital content is and important, yet complicated, task. Unlike printed works, digital media also has to be constantly up-cycled to the latest technology. Compact discs became DVDs, MPEG migrated to H264, and the conversions will continue as better technologies come to market. Printed works, on the other hand, show surprising resiliency. Take the Dead Sea Scrolls as an example which have lasted millennia. Will future generations be able to find the Dead Sea Bits?
The real issue for most is the ability to profit from their work. Even the technology companies tend to struggle with profitability from free services. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and a host of others, are perfect examples. The reality is that the quality of content is often directly linked to the price paid. As an aggregator of content it does not create, Google gets this. The company is actively working with the news and media outlets to solve the question of financial sustainability.
Going from the tangible to digital will not be a road paved with ease. For all parties involved, down to the iPad envy tech enthusiasts, the issues will need thoughtful consideration.
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