Forget newspapers, the iPad will forever change magazines

When I heard Wired, my favorite tech magazine, would be launching an iPad application to access their content by summer, I was ecstatic. Not just because I enjoy the magazine so much, but because of how they play a role in the shift magazines will take now that the iPad is in existence. For instance, take a look at the video below that shows what Sports Illustrated could be doing with their magazine application. Watching this once makes you realize the great amount of potential the iPad has in terms of revolutionizing the way we look at magazines. However, that’s only the beginning.

Unlike newpapers, magazines have always had wonderfully designed pages with plenty of color and images to go around. Furthermore, the idea of a magazine is easier to put into digital form because it is much like a book in the way it is held and read. Instead of a large, folded piece of paper, a magazine is about the size of a tablet screen and bound in book form. And, as you all know, we have already been creating digital forms of books for years.

On the other hand, digitizing the newspaper would require a shift in the way we hold and access the information they offer. For that reason, looking at the iPad as a way to forever change the way to read magazines versus the way we read newspapers is a better idea, in my opinion. That said, nobody is saying the very same content we access in newspaper form today could be simply altered to fit the magazine paradigm we are all used to. In fact, this might be the best way to go about the shift to digital content on a tablet device.

Think about it. Perhaps the biggest issues with magazine production (speculating here, I’m no expert) are a.) the amount of ink used in each one, and b.) getting those magazines from where they are produced to mailboxes worldwide. With a digital form of magazine on the iPad, both of these costs are eliminated. In fact, all of the production/manufacturing of the magazine basically shifts to digital. For instance, as I’m sure the newspapers are designed on a computer, this design would no longer need to be translated to paper. What is designed would simply need to be built with the iPad (or any tablet device for that instance) in mind. By this, I mean that people will be using fingers, not mice, so the design should certainly take that into account. Furthermore, instead of mailing out issues to everyone, publishing the magazine would be as simple as throwing the content and media onto a server and linking to it from the application. And since the Internet is everywhere nowadays, this makes the content available wherever the hardware is, even if that happens to be overseas.

There is room for all sorts of innovation in this field. Just looking at that video from Sports Illustrated alone brought up ideas I hadn’t even thought of before. With digital versions on a device so perfect for them, it is almost no work whatsoever to integrate this content with all sorts of social networking websites and make it reach the eyes of even more people. Furthermore, digital versions will allow all sorts of media that isn’t available in physical magazines today.

If I were the CEO of any magazine company in existence today, I would be making sure my application is ready for when the iPad is released in a month or so. If not, they’re dead in the water.