ABC to move into tablet publishing with new weekly title
Angela Clark
The ABC is to launch a new tablet-based current affairs publication offering a mixture of video, audio and written content from across the corporation, Mumbrella can reveal.
While the public service broadcaster already offers a number of apps, including its iView catchup TV service, the new product – as yet unnamed – will be more magazinelike with a weekly publication schedule and intended to be available in the Apple and Android newsstands where it will be next to tablet editions of existing magazines and newspapers.
The project is being spearheaded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s innovation department and is one of the biggest moves to date by Angela Clark who took charge of the unit last year.
The tablet product will focus on current affairs with broadcast material from across the corporation. It will be free.
Clark told Mumbrella the product would be unlike anything currently in the market, describing it as a “long-form tablet app”.
The app will feature eight to ten stories a week told through writing, video and audio content from across the network as well as relevant material from the ABC archives.
Clark said: “Behaviour that we’re seeing around tablets, it is your book before bed, where you go and have some personal space more in-depth time rather than that breaking news habit.
“We have a lot of rich media and video content and a lot of it is in a linear form and we’re looking at exploring that inner form that’s not linear that gives people time to absorb it in different ways to enter the story.”
Clark is currently recruiting for an editor, assistant editor, graphic designer and a data journalist to run the publication during a 12 month pilot period, with the first issue expected to be published in February.
The editor will be paid up to $100k plus super. According to the ad: “The successful candidate will have a strong background in journalism, having lead editorial teams and will possess excellent communication skills, demonstrating an ability to work with a large number of stakeholders to deliver quality products on tight deadline and budgets.”
As well as appealing to people who already engage with ABC content through a tablet the app aims to reach a younger demographic and those who do not regularly access the ABC.
Clark said: “We want to re-imagine and re-express ABC’s existing content in a way that makes sense on a tablet and by doing so can reach a broader audience and learn about what the tablet brings to a broadcaster. Rather than thinking of the tablet purely as a second screen just playing TV, we will look at the attributes people really like about a tablet. Part of those attributes are delight, serendipity, touch, interactiveness, and you don’t get those by just purely replaying video.
“This is an unexpected way of coming across the ABC so we’re trying to target a slightly younger audience than our core audience,” Clarke said.
The ambitions of the tablet appear to be not dissimilar from News Corp’s failed US tablet project The Daily which launched in February 2011 and closed at the end of last year after failing to deliver sufficient subscribers.
Megan Reynolds
Sounds good. I’d love to try this but my tablet of choice is on Windows 8. What’s the chance of a version on that platform?
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Will it carry advertising???
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Unlucky Scott, but you can always purchase a cheap android tablet from Aldi or the like for around $100 if you are desperate to check out the new app.
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Wish the ABC all the best with this venture. News Corp’s issue with The Daily came through launching a product that was so flawed with bugs that the initial user surge for the product had a bad experience and that word of mouth spread. No matter how the product improved, it becomes very challenging to wrestle back that negative position. Be interested to watch this new app venture to see if it delivers strong consumer uptake.
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I can see this working for in-depth analysis of issues, something that will dig into the ramifications, take a critical insightful look into things and go further than just up-to-the-minute-we’re-not-sure-what’s-happening-but-boy-oh-boy-is-it-happening-and-we’re-watching-it sensationalist style news that most news programs have mastered.
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More bad news for the media mastheads….
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Why oh why are our public or even commercial broadcasters wasting money on native tablet apps and maintaining multiple versions and alienating audiences?
HTML5 is more than mature enough for a news / entertainment broadcaster in 2013.
Build once and it works on all tablets. You maintain one experience across all devices, you maintain one set of code and you don’t need to give 30% of any program sales to Apple, Google or Microsoft.
Research STILL shows that users prefer to use web browser for news, entertainment, video related content contrary to hype from agencies and vendors pushing native mobile apps.
I can’t believe in 2013 ABC, FOXTEL and others are still dumb enough to waste money on native apps and alienate audiences by building for one platform, then another months or years later and ignore the freely available research showing users prefer the browser on tablets and smartphones for this type of content…..
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There isn’t a single successful newspaper or magazine tablet app in Australia but maybe the ABC knows something the rest of us don’t.
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‘I can’t believe in 2013 ABC, FOXTEL and others are still dumb enough to waste money on native apps and alienate audiences by building for one platform…’
+1
I’d put it down to the tech-illiterates becoming enamoured with iOS and its ease of use. Very prevalent in Australian msm – many were openly betting the Apple app store would save the farm not so long ago.
Then Android shot to most popular OS and msm slowly and begrudgingly realised if you’re obsessed with walled gardens, Android apps were also needed.
But going for one or both alienates many, many users. Platform agnostic HTML5 is the way to go and will win in the end, but it’s probably hard to understand for those who don’t have a basic understanding of how it all works.
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Thanks for all your comments, just to clarify, we are not building native apps, we are ‘building once’ publishing everywhere…
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Hi Angela,
Our journalist did ask specifically if the tablet application was being built with the intention of it being available on the (Apple) newsstand. She also asked you if it was intended for Google and Android, and you also answered in the affirmative. I wonder if you and Martin are talking slightly at cross purposes. If you mean build once (I guess in Adobe DFP) and then publish to different apps, then it would still requite native apps to publish into. Otherwise, I’m not sure how you would get it onto the newsstand.
Martin is proposing a different approach, that of building in HTML5. (Martin, I’d be interested, in your experience does that mean it would only be available to the user at the time they are connected to the internet, as opposed to native apps which allow for downloading and viewing later?)
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
“The successful candidate will have a strong background in journalism, having lead editorial teams …”
I think that should be “led”.
And who is Angela Clarl?
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Apologies – jumping in for Martin here.
Latest versions of both Chrome (Andriod) and Safari (iOS) support offline storage.
Download the content once, read anytime.
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Hi Tim,
A native mobile magazine or news app also needs to be ‘connected’ to the Internet to download the content for the app. A HTML5 magazine or newspaper pretty much works the same way as after you’ve downloaded the initial core experience, you just download (and the HTML5 app or native app caches) the latest content so you can view it offline. Bottom line, HTML5 has offline reading capability.
This is one way and I’m generalising:
On first visit to the magazine you’d use appcache to store just enough Javascript, CSS and HTML to get the web app (static resources) started (bootstrapping). Then you’d use an ajax request eval() it to deliver the rest of the content which stores it in localStorage. If you are offline you can still use the HTML5 magazine via your browser and it’ll give you offline access to all the last content downloaded.
The point is, just like a first time download of a native app, on a first visit to a HTML5 browser magazine version it downloads enough of the core experience on first visit and then on each visit it gets the latest content. This core appcache experience is cached in the browser so you don’t keep downloading it on every visit. This is the same as launching a native app which then connects to the Internet to get latest content or it just accesses a cache of the last content when the device was last connected to the Internet.
Some examples of HMTL5 apps with offline capabilities (hundreds more out there) –
– Kindle Cloudreader – https://read.amazon.com/
– Financial Times – http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/
– Gmail Offline is a HTML5 email app – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmail-offline/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmpbfngldlkglhimk?hl=en
– Office365, Outlook web app, Exchange2013 uses HTML5 and can be used offline
Two key HTML5 features –
HTML5 Web Workers: This API allows mobile websites to perform more like mobile apps by doing heavy JavaScript processing in isolated threads, without affecting user interface interactions
HTML5 Web Storage: This specification uses JavaScript to store and access large amounts of data on the client side, with benefits over HTTP cookies that include better security, improved performance, and more local storage
The most important thing is that research for the past 3+ years has consistently outlined that users prefer to use the browser vs native apps to consumer news, entertainment and video content on their smartphone and tablets.
I tweeted this timely article on 8th October – ‘Why tablet magazine are a failrue’ http://gigaom.com/2013/10/06/t.....s-failure/
Bottom line is, that the much lower cost and benefits of building a HTML5 web app vs 3-4 versions of native apps is a no brainer.
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Serves me right for responding after a quick scan & while on holidays. Yes, using DPS, so they do ‘go native’.
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Sorry to hear ABC is still going to be building native mobile & tablet apps!!
It is a waste of scarce money, time & resources and it alienates audiences.
I think the ABC needs to get better advice on this ‘strategy’.
I really don’t understand media and broadcasters. All the research over the past 3+ years, which ironically is freely available, has consistently and clearly outlined that smartphone and tablet users prefer the browser over a native app when consuming news, entertainment and video content. On top of this there are very, very few case studies of broadcasters / publishers who have been successful with a native magazine app.
Too many broadcasters and media are getting very poor advice from self interested parties; agencies, vendors and SI’s.
Barring a very few, now limited scenarios, HTML5 can do most things that broadcaster, media, publishers, sports and brands need for a mobile digital experience.
Just some of the benefits of HTML5 web apps:
– Much lower costs – instead of building and maintaining an iOS app, Google Play app, Windows app or Blackberry app, you only have one web app. If you use responsive web design you can even save more money by using the same smartphone code/design as your tablet web app
– Multi platform support / One code base across all devices – much of which can be the same or similar to the website
– One consistent user experience – for all users from website to smartphones to tablets
– Instant updates – no need to go through app store approvals when you make minor updates to bugs and code fixes or enhancements
– No restrictions – no need to be subjected to Apple, Google or Microsoft policies & guidelines and censorship
– Pricing and subscriptions – you control your pricing and subscription options and you don’t need to give 30% to store owners. You also don’t give away any share of ecommerce which is initiated or linked to through your iOS app
– Deep integration with other content on your website or other digital channels
– Existing analytics applications like Google Analytics, Omniture, WebTrends etc give you richer and more consolidated analytics than what Adobe DPS and others claim. You use the same code as on your website
– Touch – there’s now lots of code around for enabling very smooth touch interaction with HTML5 web apps, for example Sencha Touch (used by FT)
– Drawing, Video & Sound – better Direct HTML Support for Drawing, Animation, Video and Audio
– Geolocation – new HTML 5 geolocation APIs make location, whether generated via GPS or other methods, directly available to any HTML 5-compatible browser-based application. A good example is the Google Latitude for the iPhone. This is a pure Web App not a platform-dependent iPhone application.
– Client-side database
– Offline application cache
– Thread-like Operation – allows for faster thread-like processing, API allows developers to make background workers that run scripts simultaneously to the main page script
– Smarter forms – HTML 5 offers enhanced forms with improvements to text inputs, search boxes and other fields and provides better controls for validating data, focusing, interaction with other page elements on the page and various other improvements
– Sharper focus on Web application Requirements – HTML 5 is aimed at making it easier to build search front-ends, wikis, real-time chat, drag-and-drop tools, discussion boards and many other modern web elements into any site, and have them work more efficiently
Myths
Mobile app goldrush – there is no such thing as a mobile app developer goldrush. Yes, some companies and individuals have done well but 90% of all mobile apps are free (up from 80% in 2010). People simply want more free content than they want to avoid ads or to have the absolute highest quality content possible
App Stores – there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever now to being in the Apple, Google or Windows stores. There are now so many apps now that you are but a drop in the ocean. You still have to spend your own money to market your apps and in fact all your doing is largely advertising the Apple, Google or Windows brands and if you’re charging for you app or offering subscription you’re giving away 30% for no real benefit vs a web app
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Agree 100% with Martin’s analysis here. Native publishing is an incredibly poor choice for the ABC in this day and age.
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Weird industry this. One half says “experiment, try a few things, fail” the other half says use HTML5 like that’s a guarantee of success.
A lot of what goes in in any company it because someone is the executive went to a conference.
However Angela in a pretty smart operator. There are a million reasons to bash out a magazine and drop in in the app store. This is perhaps a low risk experiment.
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Dear angelaisprettysmart,
Please list the million reasons to bash out a native magazine and drop it into the app store!
Nothing weird about the industry, what’s weird is acceptance by broadcasters, media and brands of the poor advice being given within the industry which contradicts the freely available research, case studies and overwhelming lack of success with native magazine apps.
How is an expensive native app which has to be developed into 3-4 platform versions and 3-4 device (smartphone & tablet) versions, low risk?
Unless ABC wants to use taxpayer money to discriminate content accessibility, alienate audiences and only build an iPhone and iPad app (which by the way has less than 29% share of smartphones in Australia and is down from 80% share to 56% and dropping fast in tablets).
HTML5 future proofs your content and digital experiences against rapidly changing market shares of devices and platforms.
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I was talking through the ABC apps with someone else today. They pointed out the ABC have actually done a really good job with their apps. iView is everywhere, they have done a great job with their childrens apps. So I suspect they have good reason for what they have done.
I’m not sure a cut and paste from a number of HTML5 blogs rates as expert opinion.
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Dear angelaisprettysmart,
So you are saying I have no idea what I’m talking about? Have you looked at my profile and checked out my experience?
Nobody has said the ABC has not ‘done well’ with their apps.
What I and others have said as experienced Digital Marketers who have a lot of experience in this space is;
As the ABC is not monetising their apps and the ABC needs to make the content available and accessible for all audiences (taxpayers) and as the ABC has scarce funding and resources, the ABC should not be building 3-4 native mobile and 2-3 native tablet apps as the cost to build, maintain and enhance is about 10-20 times higher than building one or two HTML5 experiences which will also be available for all audiences.
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“The single biggest mistake we have made at Facebook was pursuing HTML5 over native apps. The technology simply isn’t ready.”
Mark Zuckerburg
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Dear Mark Zuckerberg,
Hilarious, because:
‘Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t know how to use HTML5’ (includes video demo) – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.....ut_sencha/
Sencha, a leading provider of open-source web application frameworks and tools, has not only demonstrated real-world readiness of HTML5, but has actually built a Facebook app that performs better than Facebook’s native apps.
And by the way, “predictably news outlets and social media were quick to jump on Mark Zuckerberg’s quotes. His quotes were taken out of context and conclusions hastily drawn. In order to set the record straight, I wanted to share the transcript with you and let you draw your own, informed conclusions’:
“When I’m introspective about the last few years I think the biggest mistake that we made, as a company, is betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native… because it just wasn’t there. And it’s not that HTML5 is bad. I’m actually, on long-term, really excited about it. One of the things that’s interesting is we actually have more people on a daily basis using mobile Web Facebook than we have using our iOS or Android apps combined. So mobile Web is a big thing for us.”
–Mark Zuckerberg, Disrupt SF, September 2012.
Rest assured that we (Facebook) are more dedicated than ever to drive the mobile Web forward.
‘Mark Zuckerberg’s opinion of HTML5 is meaningless’
http://www.infoworld.com/t/htm.....ess-202460
Almost every major SaaS company, majority of tech companies like Microsoft & Google have all gone down the HTML5 route for their key applications.
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So um, the majority of tech companies except you know, little ones like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram….
Thanks for the link from a company that makes HTML5 app tools saying that HTML5 is the future though, I certainly agree with your earlier point that:
“Too many broadcasters and media are getting very poor advice from self interested parties; agencies, vendors and SI’s.”
Noone doubts the long term potential of HTML5 and (like Zuckerburg) everyone on all sides wants the ability to publish once to all devices, all platforms – but your one sided argument is just as fundamentalist as those you are railing against.
The reality is that there are arguments and use cases on both sides based on current capabilities and many are pursuing a hybrid approach. Did you even read the article you linked from infoworld? It states:
“It is probably too early to do a completely “pure” HTML5 app”
The ABC do exceptionally innovative work in this space and I have no doubt that Angela and the Innovation team looked at all options.
This is a tablet specific project apparently, so clearly the strategy is deliver a tailored experience for that channel. Australia has the 3rd highest tablet penetration in the world (Deloitte predicted it will hit 52% by years end) and the combination of iOS and Android means they cover around 92% of those users. Seems like they made the right choice.
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Sorry to jump in, but this can’t go unchallenged:
“They pointed out the ABC have actually done a really good job with their apps. iView is everywhere”
Except on Android. The fastest growing operating system for devices in Australia, and the one most accessible at a lower price point to get to audiences beyond the tech elite (who now all by android anyway because iOS is last year).
That said, Angela is pretty smart. I think it’s exactly the HTML5 vs native debate that leads to innovation paralysis in the Australian digital industry. It’s great to see someone having a go at something and I hope my 2 cents a day goes to sharing the results with the rest of us.
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iView is on something like 5 platforms but not Android. Don’t want to start that tired old flame war, but that is pretty telling. Same with BBC iPlayer – they pulled their Android viewer apps for the same ol same ol reasons.
Essentially it comes down to a cost benefit decision. what is the market share on Android and what is the cost to deploy (massive, usually with a dumbed down approach to address fragmentation).
All good reasons why people like my friend Martin are so keen on the magical silver bullet.
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I like the cut of this Martin Walsh’s jib.
Listen to the man, people. Stop blowing precious cash on last decade’s technology.
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Deark Mark,
Firstly, nobody is questioning whether ABC does innovative stuff or whether Angela knows her stuff!
Secondly, you keep missing the point of the discussion. ABC has limited funds and resources, therefore why spend lots more money unnecessarily on native apps when research has clearly shown they aren’t needed for a tablet or smartphones as users prefer the browser and particularly when research clearly shows native magazine apps haven’t been successful. ABC also has an obligation to make the content accessible for all audiences.
The point once again is that people are getting poor to bad advice, following the bright shiny object syndrome and ignoring research.
I included the link to the second article which specifically put more context around why Mark said what he said about HTML5 at the time. Facebook poorly developed a mobile web app experience using HTML5 and yet you chose to use his comments out of context and misquoted to justify your argument that the ABC should not use HTML5 vs spending 10-20 times more on native tablet (and or mobile) apps?
The point of providing links to both these articles was to demonstrate that what Mark said and which was subsequently taken out of context was, that if Facebook had of gotten the right mobile UX skills and the right mobile developers they could have developed a web app which was better than their native iOS, Android & Windows apps. Senchen built the demo to prove that what Mark said about HTML5 not being ready was bullshit.
N.B. Even Mark himself said that more people visit Facebook using the mobile web vs native apps!
As I previously stated, research (which is ironically freely available) has consistently for the past 3+ years showed that mobile and tablet users PREFER to use a mobile browser to consume news, entertainment and video content on their smartphone & tablets?
Also as previously outlined, there are few, if any success stories for publishing tablet magazines as a native app? I tweeted this just a couple of weeks ago and have also shared many similar article; ‘Why tablet magazines are a failure’ http://gigaom.com/2013/10/06/t…..s-failure/ (Lots of other articles and case studies freely available)
Where have I or anyone else said that everyone should not develop native apps?
I said if you are a public broadcaster funded by taxpayer money, the ABC needs to move to open standards, spend up to 10-20 times less on building, maintaining and enhancing a HTML5 magazine app vs multiple versions of native apps for the various platforms. I give the same advice to other organisations and brands depending on their goals and objectives and expected outcomes.
The ABC and other broadcasters should stop wasting money on building apps just for one ecosystem and alienating audiences. Broadcasters and brands have been years behind the changes in market shares for mobile and tablet platforms as they all bet the farm on Apple. Even when Android market share went ahead of Apple’s in smartphone most brands and broadcasters still hadn’t released Android apps – largely do to costs.
Another classic example is FOXTEL. They could have spent 1/10th the money they did on their native Apple only app on a HTML5 app which would have been more widely accessible. Everything their native app does can be done in HTML5 for 1/10th the cost. So why spend 10-20 times the money for no real benefits?
You can selectively pull out quotes like ‘It is probably too early to do a completely “pure” HTML5 app’ as much as you want but the reality is that a significant chunk of the world have already done it and are doing more of it.
Are you saying that Gmail, which is a HTML5 app isn’t real? Are you saying that Outlook.com and Office web apps which are HTML5 apps aren’t real? They and thousands of others are hundreds of times more complex than an ABC or Facebook app! Is the Salesforce Touch HTML5 interface for tablets not real (already a year old)? I can keep providing examples of thousands of other HTML5 “pure” apps if you want me to whether mobile, tablet, kiosk web apps.
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Ummmm….. ipads are entertainment thingies. So, am I meant to have an ipad thingie to read magazines and then swap to my laptop/tablet/desktop to actually do work? Sorry ABC, but I hate ‘cuddling’ up with facebook too.
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You seem to be so busy building and attacking your beloved strawmen that you miss the point. I have never stated HTML5 apps don’t exist, I told you needed to acknowledge there is a use case for both! I even called out that hybrid apps are increasingly in use for a best of both worlds approach. Your rant about gmail/outlook/whatever is completely irrelevant.
This is a tablet specific play. The content is curated from the ABC so it’s already available through other channels.
So the ABC isn’t “wasting money on building apps just for one ecosystem and alienating audiences.” They are building a channel specific (remember, it’s a tablet play) product that on launch, will cover 92% of the total user base in that channel. The article states clearly that this initiative is in direct response to user behavior on tablets and so they have gone with a solution that allows for offline usage, superior performance, integration with native features of the chosen devices (remember now, it’s a tablet play) and covers the overwhelming majority of the available market. QED.
They are doing so with a publishing platform rather than custom development (DPS, although I probably would have preferred they go with the local aussie alternative Oomph) so your pulled out of the sky cost comparisons are also well out.
As for your blanket statement that ‘research shows that native magazine apps haven’t been successful’ that’s a bit rich, innit? I am familiar with the article you linked and that is looking at paid subs as the criteria, but why would you point the bone at app based mags only? Using this criteria, there are no successful digital mags fullstop (and increasingly fewer in print). This is overwhelming an advertising/revenue based issue, not a delivery channel one.
For a success story, how about the Qantas App? Produced by Bauer (using Oomph platform) they were last years winner of Magazine App of the year, they have 20K unique downloads per issue and have had over 311K in total, with almost 50K subscribers (according to Bauer website). It looks like a fantastic extension to their existing offering and a great way to achieve global brand extension. Sounds like a win to me and clearly Qantas think so cause they keep making it.
Market validation FTW.
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Obviously you know more than I do Mark Zuckerberg and I know nothing…..
P.S. Why won’t you use your real name? Do you have some self serving interest in this debate?
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