Encore on tablet: ‘massive mistake’ or ahead of the curve?
This week marks the 12th edition of Encore in its weekly tablet-only format and managing editor Brooke Hemphill shares what she has learnt so far.
In February, Encore celebrated its 30th anniversary. As we reflected at the time, the publication has gone through a whole lot of change since it began life as The Australian Film Review in 1983 but the biggest change by far has been the end of the print edition and the move to a weekly tablet-only format at the start of this year.
It was a major leap and the question is, did we jump too soon?
The first 12 weekly Encore editions
Prior to the magazine’s anniversary, we were quite open about the fact that print was an unsustainable business model for Encore and so at the end of 2012, the print edition had its swansong and we began the process of relaunching the title for the second time in just over a year.
For the last six months of the print mag’s life we had been producing a hastily assembled iPad edition created in two days each month after the magazine was sent to the printers. In essence, it was a glorified digital replica of the print edition and I’m the first to admit that it wasn’t the most functional or the prettiest looking tablet magazine. It was, after all, the poor cousin of the print edition despite us trying to flip the system on its head and think digital first. Truth is, the print edition was simply more time consuming.
While removing print and distribution costs from the equation was considered the greatest benefit of killing the print mag, the ability to design and build the magazine for the tablet without having to think print at all was also an attractive prospect. We imagined fewer labour hours and a better functioning app to offer the market but first there were a number of challenges to consider in the production process. For example, how do you sub copy on the tablet? We’re still working on the best way to do this but for now we print pages out and mark them up.
We also grappled with the portrait/landscape or horizontal/vertical decision. Should we build the tablet edition so it could be viewed both ways of the device’s orientation or just one? We opted for one way and chose landscape (horizontal) based on advice from app developer Reddo. It makes sense as the stand on a tablet accommodates this view orientation best but I have noticed many other publishers including The Hollywood Reporter and New York Magazine have chosen the opposite. Who’s right? You tell me.
A greater challenge was communicating to our existing tablet subscribers as we switched over to a new app. Encore’s monthly tablet edition, built using the Oomph platform, had amassed more than 10,000 downloads in the Apple App Store. As tablet magazine readers will be aware, downloading magazines from the newsstand is a two-step process requiring the download of an app first with issues then considered ‘in-app purchases’ whether paid or free. In an attempt to move readers across to our new Reddo-produced app, we designed a page in the Oomph app that redirected them to the new app. It’s fair to say they didn’t all come at once.
Three months on, the new app has been downloaded 3,610 times. As the below graph shows, each Thursday when the issue drops, we average about 100 new downloads of the app itself.
Driving these downloads is an email that goes to Encore readers listing the stories and features included in the edition, with links to download the app on both iPad and Android devices. You can sign up for the email here if you don’t already receive it.
Once people are in the app, they have the choice of downloading a single issue or signing up for a free subscription. The dark blue on the below graph shows the single issue downloads, the light blue the subscriptions. To date 1,204 of the 3,610 people who have downloaded the app have opted for the subscription, which notifies them with a pop up on their iPad when a new issue is available, allowing it to be downloaded with a single tap.
In terms of edition downloads we’re averaging between 400 to 600 downloads per issue, but more on that in a minute because downloads are not the only thing that happens when an issue drops. Each time the email goes out, it is followed by a number of responses asking how Encore can be read without a tablet.
“Is there any way I can view your online articles on a laptop? i.e. non iPad?” one person emails.
“I’m really interested in receiving Encore but I’m not a tablet user – is there any way for me to access via PC or iPhone?” asks another.
“I use my laptop and my phone but have no intention of buying an iPad of any description,” a third announces.
My personal favourite was a tweet asking “since when have publishers been so platform specific?” My response – since the printing of the first newspaper – was not well received.
I have found myself getting into discussions about the benefits of buying a tablet, explaining why the magazine is not available for smartphones (it would involve a complete rebuild each week) and why it’s not possible to send out a PDF version of the magazine (the interactive features wouldn’t work so another rebuild would be required). Finally, in an email to one wannabe reader unable to access the publication, I posed the question: have we made a massive mistake going tablet only or are we simply ahead of the curve?
We have made a sample of the app available on encore.com.au and each week we select a number of pages to make visible (and shareable from the app). It’s possible to make the whole edition viewable this way and we’re talking about whether we should because, ultimately, we want the magazine to be read by as many people as possible.
But I do wonder what the point of reading a tablet magazine on your desktop is when instead of swiping, pinching and other tablet-specific gestures you are clicking with a mouse.
It goes without saying that we want mega Encore downloads and so going down the tablet path, we decided we had to be available on as many devices as possible, a key factor in working with publishing company Reddo which publish to Android as well as iPad. I understand that Oomph will soon be moving into this space as well but right now, I’m not sure it is worth their time or ours.
This graph shows downloads of Encore for iPad and Android devices. While iPad downloads for each issue sit in the 400 to 600 plus range, the most downloads for a single Android edition is 33.
At a recent Publishers Australia event for tablet publishing, a designer for one of the major magazine publishers pointed out that people purchasing Android tablets, especially lower end devices, are not the type of people to spend $10 on a print magazine and are therefore unlikely to download magazines to their tablets. This is a particularly valid point for our audience, even though Encore is free. If a media industry professional is going to buy a tablet, are they more likely to get an iPad from the Apple store or a $100 Android device from Aldi?
The question of whether it’s worth our time to build an Android tablet is important because what we build for iPad doesn’t automatically work on Android – Android devices have different screen dimensions and functionality. At the most basic level, a border can be added to pages built for the iPad to accommodate the different screen dimensions – we like to call this ‘bashing out the margins’. Three weeks into the process of building for Android, we discovered tall pages that scroll do not need to be resized, only pages built to fit the iPad’s dimensions exactly do, reducing production time somewhat. Regardless, if you want to produce an Android edition on top of the iPad using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, add an extra three to four hours to make it happen each edition, once you have your systems in place.
The other strategy we are working on is content sharing between Encore and sister title Mumbrella. Right now, articles produced for Encore trickle out on Mumbrella across the following week with features, opinion pieces and analysis getting a second run in the seven days following Encore hitting the newsstand. Does this prevent people from downloading the app knowing the content will eventually hit Mumbrella or do people prefer the lean-back experience of reading this on their tablet? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Aside from the technology and platform-related questions surrounding Encore, two questions continue to stir debate in the Focal Attractions office. Firstly that despite the content sharing across the titles, the same reporters’ names popping up on both publications and the ads splashed all over Mumbrella, many in the industry are not aware that Encore and Mumbrella come from the same company. Secondly, Encore is yet to shake the image of being purely a screen industry title. A recent video interviewee commented that the “film crowd” reading Encore would be less interested in what he had to say than the Mumbrella audience despite both publications now running under the same tagline “everything under the media, marketing and entertainment umbrella”.
As a panel of tablet publishers discussed at the recent Publishers Australia event, the iPad has only been in Australia for three years – it really is still early days. And while we’re yet to say we’ve got the system and the strategy down, I can’t help but think we’re ahead of the curve as opposed to having made a mistake. In the end though, the readers will decide.
Brooke Hemphill is the managing editor of Encore.
This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.
I think you are correct that it is early days, but you have also made some decisions that have deliberately limited your audience. In my view your decision to ignore smartphone users is a mistake.
Some of the most popular Android devices are smartphones with tablet style screen resolutions.
I tried to download your Android app, but couldn’t because your app does not support my device – a Galaxy Note phone with the latest Android software version. When you choose to only support a tiny fraction of Android devices, you should not be surprised that your Android readership is poor.
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Having had both Apple and Android devices it quickly became clear that Android was far better. I access most info on my Samsung Galaxy phone including Mumbrella. I did enjoy the content of Encore but I’m now missing it as you have made a decision that it is far easier for you to produce it for one platform only. As Android market share has overtaken Apple and is booming does this really make a lot of sense?
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Speaking for the “high-end” Android tablet users, this piece left me a little nonplussed.
I don’t like Apple because of its wall-garden mentality, and find I have higher functionality using Android products. If, like me, you view iTunes as the world’s most popular piece of malware and Apple products as dumbed-down, deliberately crippled pieces of hardware, it’s hard to see the appeal.
I’d suggest pushing into the Android market, or even better, go for HTML5 and become platform agnostic. Why lock your magazine into a single platform of questionable value?
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+1 for HTML5….
But otherwise, good job sharing this — it’s something (and data) that needs to be discussed realistically rather than waxing lyrical about the future of digital publishing.
Would be very interested to read about the cost-benefit and ROI you’ve received (cost-per-download, CPM for the advertisers etc) as well — understand this is probably pushing the “open to all” approach though 😉
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I’d like to have a tablet but can’t really justify it when I have a very small laptop which is only a little bigger to transport.
When you did your Q scores (or your version) I really wanted to read the article. I want to four newsagents and couldn’t find a copy. I’m not going to buy a tablet just for Encore. I enjoy the posts on Mumbrella that come from Encore and I’d pay some money to try it out but when someone as interested as I am has to do so much work and still can’t get your publication you must wonder about how many people you’re missing out on.
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Hi Sebastian,
The Google Play app is only supported by Android tablets not Android phones.
As I explained in the piece above, for the magazine to be available on smartphones (Android or Apple) it would require a completely separate and specific build to support the screen dimensions of smaller devices.
We have not made the decision to ignore smartphone users. We have made the decision to build a tablet magazine. At some point in the future we may build a smartphone version of the magazine (obviously we’d love to be available in every format possible but have to start somewhere); for now, Encore is a tablet only magazine.
Kind regards,
Brooke – Encore
Brooke, thanks for sharing your thoughts/experiences in this piece, I really enjoyed it. A few thoughts of my own:
1) The previous Encore edition was my first download, and I was only spurred into it because of the stuff I had seen leaking into Mumbrella. I think this content sharing approach is a good move, especially while your audience is relatively small.
2) I edited a tablet-focused mag for around 6 months, and a lot of our problems centred on those same issues around the balance between design, functionality, and user access.
I know native apps hold a lot of promise (in theory) on the advertising side — but IMO that potential is wiped out by the time/money that goes into tailoring a mag to a specific platform/OS. I know that after my own experiences on this front I’ve become pretty disillusioned with the promise of tablet-only publishing.
If I went through the process again, I’d definitely choose to go for a html5 web app, rather than go native. Html5 means you don’t have to chose between excluding readers or rebuilding, and as a bonus you also don’t have to hand 20%-30% of your takings to Apple/Google. You’re also given the ability to build an audience over search and social, which would surely help in the early days.
Overall, I’m not completely opposed to native apps, because there are still readers out there who enjoy that method. But apps demand much more work, and in the early days I reckon those resources are better spent in other parts of the publication.
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I should add that I think you guys are doing a great job with Encore. I’ll definitely be coming back after downloading last issue, and I enjoyed the experience of reading it on the iPad (regardless of my opinions about publishing strategy, etc).
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Hi Billy C,
I’m sorry you couldn’t get hold of the magazine from newsagents – we stopped stocking the print edition in newsagents in its final months and made it subscription only which may explain why.
Encore is free on the tablet so if you do buy one, there’s no need to pay to try it out.
As for our version of the Q Scores – The Encore Score – we are currently looking at turning this into a smartphone app to showcase this years results as we know a lot of people were keen to see this.
Kind regards,
Brooke – Encore
I support your choice to make it tablet only. Better ways to do smaller screens than a publishing app. And android makes publishing a nightmare for tablets.
Just wish it was a bit more seamless with Mumbrella and didn’t tell me there’s an ipad app of the site when I’m actually accessing it via the App…
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Sebastien and Me hit the nail on the head.
I too tried to download the Encore app and I couldn’t.
Mentions of platform agnostic is definitely the way to go. Allow anybody, to view your content, on any device.
Why not take away the barrier even more and merge Encore into Mumbrella (you seem to be doing this anyway with many articles citing “as seen on Encore”).
Then Mumbrella really does cover everything under Australia’s media, marketing & entertainment umbrella.
Create a Mumbrella App and perhaps tag certain articles to what they are about: TV, Marketing, Social Media etc as well as their existing categories: opinion, news etc?
Do we need a separate ‘Encore Brand’ when it could be absorbed by Mumbrella, however the TV and Film stuff could still be easily found under it’s own section, as could social media and various other tabs / categories….?
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Positioning is important. I’d be more interested if you focussed on film only.
Also, the concept of a specialised app that does one thing and one thing only (display Encore magazine) isn’t great.
You need to publish rich media (pictures, video, marked up text), but drop the page layout. Digital is incompatible with a set layout. Users will find reliable ways of displaying your content – Flipboard, Feedly, the web, whatever.
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I don’t have a tablet device and miss Encore! I loved it and now borrow one to read the mag from time to time. I feel it is too limiting for an already small niche market. Of course, that’s Encore’s choice but the missed opportunity for greater readership must be there by having more diversity – at least online.
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Ahead of the curve. Much prefer it for the PC.
@Galaxy s3 bod — In terms of merging Mumbrella and Encore… I would hazard a guess that the move not to is just the classic strategy of identifying a vertical market.
@Nicholas — I don’t really get what you mean. Are you saying Encore would be better off as a standard web site?
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@ Andrew Duffy
I hear you there. In that case cross promote as we see now then, (when Encore editorial is relevant to Mumbrella then feature it).
Making Encore accessible on any device is a no brainer though imo; why put a fence up if quality eyeballs want to enter..?
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Oh boy… I do not envy your dilemma. I’ve just finished this and it is long and there are typos but I do not have the time to go back.
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I was one of the first writers for the Australian Film Review mostly on music video and digital advances. I remember bringing in my Tandy Model 100 portable computer into the office and showing Greg Bright, the publisher, how I used it to file copy globally off a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem. He said it would never take off. He thought Email was a refrigerator brand. He also laughed at my mobile phone in a briefcase with a fax machine. Ahhh, those were the days…
You are suffering from the same problem most digital pioneers faced when they tried to anticipate the trend. Most die from picking the technological approach that seems sexy and geeky, not realising that most people who pay for things, don’t give a shit. They just want it now, easy, fast and complete. They want to be ahead of their competition.
As you may know, before I retired to Coffs Harbour two and a half years ago, I produced a music industry directory for 22 years in print, online and as an Apple app. It was hugely profitable because we did it without using and translating a database. Believe it or not, we did the whole thing in Word and it was pretty seamless. It left us a lot of time to promote outwards past just the listed companies into overseas markets and by using those pesky thousand email lists that we sometimes received as the To; field of an email from some hapless idiot.
We also produced a weekly news magazine online only, initially free but with freemium content including updates to the directory which cross-callatoralised that property. We had a daily news feed which started out free and then was charges as an immediate email with links tot he stories while the free version exisited online so you had to go to a site.
All the while, we were racking up massive profits on print advertising, online advertising and related businesses like a music business bookstore, music industry conferences and representing South by Southwest. Sorry for all the background but here comes the windup.
I used your app right out of the box. It sucked. Not just inhaled sharply. It was woeful. And despite all the new bells and whistles you added, I only tried to board the train once. Like many of my time poor, data addicted peers, we can’t waste our hours trying to make your tech work. So we never return. Just like a bad restaurant opening or a kludgy new car. If it don’t work, we wn’t wait around to fix it.
I loved Encore. But the gradual erosion started long before you bought it. Making it electronic just lost a lot of readers that did not replace the print clientele. We are constantly assaulted by data smog so that which attracts our attention may not and usually doesn’t gain our loyalty.
Mumbrella started out online, filled a niche and was vital. Encore did exactly the opposite. I still think you can work your way out of it but it will be expensive and time consuming. I hope it works.
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Phil, I find it hard to believe you couldn’t “work out” Encore… it’s a pretty standard format. If you found that frustrating I’m not sure those new fandangled tablets are for you… maybe stick with the Tandy 100?
I’d love to know what your amazingly successful, disruptive, forward looking digital media outlet was as well…?
Delusions of grandeur aside… do you have any real criticism of how the app works/its design/something else… or you just trolling?
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Big mistake and I’ve said it a few times now including when I unsubscribed to the Encore email.
I was a long time subscriber to the Encore magazine and I’m a Digital Marketer and Film Producer.
I’ve advised on the HTML5 stuff for 2 years now but organisations like Mumbrella keep being talked into wasting their money on native mobile apps by agencies.
There is absolutely no reason why Mumbrella should not use responsive web design and HTML5 so you build one website / online magazine which is available for all PC’s, browsers, tablets and smartphones.
I use a Microsoft Surface tablet and a Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone so you’ve 100% alienated a long time reader.
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The Ipad is too limiting.
Why not just make it a website like mumbrella..
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I deliberately don’t use a tablet, so you miss me as a reader. I fail to understand why you are deliberately excluding so many similarly-placed people. My estimate is that you are reaching half your potential audience – by a wrong choice on your part.
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I don’t think you’ve jumped too soon, I actually think you may have jumped too late. I personally think the ‘no website’ decision is a huge mistake and one that is only going to cause you more and more problems over time – particularly as HTML5 and responsive/mobile web design come into their own and tablet magazines start to lose their currency, which already seems to be happening in places.
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I have 3 laptops at varying sizes and capacities, and have no intention of buying a tablet of any sort. I used to buy Encore print now and then. But no more 🙁
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To answer your questions:
themusic.com.au was the site
I can’t criticise the app since it put me off initially, but I do enjoy Mumbrella as I can read it on my iPads, 15″ and 17″ laptops and 30″ screen–all Mac. Great publication, well presented.
As for Encore, it was a great mag too until it became impossible to read as print and far too offputting with defective electronic delivery. It just wasn’t that vital to spend a whole lot of time to wait for the right version or struggle to work it out.
HTML5 would have saved it.
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Interesting article. Thanks for sharing – it’s is difficult time for publishers and it is useful for readers to understand the dilemmas.
Admittedly, I’m slow coming to the Encore-tablet party. I’d love to read it on my Android. But at 240MB, and crazily slow download speeds (44MB in 20mins), I’m very close to hitting the cancel button.
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I’m with mazmac on this one. I subscribed to Encore for $9 when it launched initially on Android even though it was free for the iPad, and being in the industry I thought it was money well spent. I think the first release said the size of the download (up around 200Mb) was only for the initial issue and was going to become smaller as further issues were released, however this hasn’t been the case and I find I’m eating into my storage space very quickly, with almost a gig of data required each month for the 4 issues. Very hard to archive them at this size!
Additionally, I’m a +1 for an HTML5 version too.
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Being early can feel a lot like being wrong
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Being early can be great if you know you can create a market and then corner it. I remember when I took my idea for a music industry directory that was to be 100 pages, glossy stock, FREE if picked up, $5 if shipped and free on a music business bulletion board. THis was in 1987.
Not surprisingly all the music biz folk I shared the concept with said it wouldn’t work. No way. They said no one would buy ads, much less pay in advance, no one would use it, the major record companies would try to block it, blah, blah, blah. It was an instant success and now is about to publish its 50th edition. Of course everyone said it wouldn’t work… they’re Australians!
I like the boys and women with Mumbrella and Encore–they’ve got moxie and their magazines are not written in stone so they can change the delivery mechanism quickly according to what economic model and technology they can mate.
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I don’t think anybody is arguing the concept of an online magazine, what I’m arguing is about the execution.
If you go down the route of designing, building and deploying a native app for a vendor ecosystem like Apple (and eventually Android) you end up alienating some of your audience.
Android now has a large ecosystem and market penetration than Apple.
So, Mumbrella now has to create an Android app or port their Apple app to Android. You’ve now duplicated your costs as well as management effort of managing two apps – new content, bug fixes, enhancements etc.
And what about the Windows ecosystem? Smartphone and tablet share are now creeping up (everyone said the same thing about Android vs Apple – they’ll never overtake Apple!).
You can deploy a Windows 8 desktop app or tablet or smartphone. You now have to build and manage three apps for three ecosystems. Windows still has 95% global market share of the desktop. I read TheNextWeb, CNN, USAToday and many other publications as Windows 8 apps on my laptop and tablet. *I’d still prefer to read a website version.
Regardless of the hype around native mobile apps most consumers still prefer to read news, magazine and other information content via browsers and NOT native mobile apps. All of this research is available online for free and I’ve previously included all these references in my other posts on similar topics.
I’m not even going to go into how ridiculous it is to build and deploy a 200MB+ magazine app in this day and age – particularly for a mobile device!
Answer? As I’ve been saying on Mumbrella for two+ years, to brands, organisations and even on SKY TV, a better way to go, particularly for revenue and costs challenged industries like media is the HTML5 route and if relevant, Responsive Web Design.
First of all, there is absolutely no benefit or value to being in an Apple, Google Play or Windows store except for 1 Click Commerce, unless you’re going to put marketing dollars behind it to get found or have some other brilliant marketing strategy to make people aware of it. There are over 500K apps or more in these stores.
With HTML5 you generally use the same resources, skills and experience of web experience designers but you build once which is accessible on all devices.
You don’t have to submit to the processes and censorship whims of app store approvals. You don’t have to resubmit your app just for minor bug fixes. It is easier to provide links to content and continue the benefits of social sharing.
I could go on and on but this is a classic example of not having a proper strategy and getting good advice.
I WANT to read a digital ENCORE publication as I did with the print version for many, many years. But you’ve alienated me by betting the farm on the Apple ecosystem and even this strategy has been flawed through poor technical execution. You are also now 12 months behind
You are also missing out on driving traffic, readers and subscribers and all the benefits of search, social and other media and marketing by locking the content away in a native app (publication) which in turn has decreased the advertising value of your publication.
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Great summary of the issues Martin.
Alienating readers and limiting potential hardly seems a way forward.
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You hit it Martin, brilliantly put. It’s the consumer, not the geeks or fanbois, who drive the platforms. And they really do want to read on browsers moreso than through kludgy apps.
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…it’s called a niche, guys.
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‘niche’, a bit like the Australian film industry 😉
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It must surely be the desire of any publisher to have their mag read by as many readers as possible as easily as possible. Using proprietary apps is surely the antidote to that. Even more so when such unwieldy download sizes eat into meagre mobile download constraints.
Notwithstanding the obvious changes in content direction Encore has taken, people simply want their content viewable on as many platforms as possible. It would seem to be madness to stifle that. HTML5 does indeed have a LOT going for it. Particularly when it can be downloaded and saved for later offline viewing (with links to video content removing the need to download each and every video in the mag). The obvious benefits of being web-searchable are huge.
In lieu of an HTML5 version, I even believe a PDF/ePUB version would provide a wonderful user experience, keep file sizes acceptable and be cross-platform compatible whilst retaining all touch gestures and being mouse friendly. And most any desktop pub programme can create the rich content. The mags can be downloaded directly from the website and saved directly to your iPad/android/laptop/PC thereby bypassing iTunes and app stores altogether. One notable rockclimbing magazine provides quarterly 100-page mags in this format (free) from their site and the file sizes are routinely sub-50mb for very rich content. On my ipad the file saves itself to the book reader app and I can even offload it to my computer or phone for reading without a net connection. Too easy.
I’m a believer that a mag needs to look and feel (even when wholly digital) like a mag. Provide links to ads and vids. HTML5 and/or PDF/ePUB can deliver. It’s never too late to reconsider and start again with a plan that can get into more readers hands and (hopefully) recapture the ones you’ve lost.
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