Content Matters

At the bootcamp session at last week's Content VIA Platforms conference, I gave a presentation on developing a mobile strategy in a multi-platform world.

It was a fun discussion, spotlighting why HTML5 vs. native app doesn't have to be a religious war, among other topics.

I've posted the slides here.

My Twitter stream was all abuzz yesterday with tweets suggesting that the App Economy was over. I must have missed that official announcement, so I clicked through to read a bit more.

The root of all the excitement, it turns out, was a post by Jason Pontin, Publisher of MIT Technology Review entitled Why Publishers Don’t Like Apps.

The article shares MIT’s experiences in developing, launching and promoting an app for the respected Technology Review magazine.  And the author points to the MIT experience as evidence that the mobile web, not native apps, are the compelling path forward for publishers.

 MIT’s experiences were not positive. They spent $124k on outsourced app development, creating an app which yielded all of 353 paid subscriptions. It’s no surprise why they were not pleased with the results. Yet, reading a bit further into the article, yields some insights to the potential failure.

MIT Technology Review created what is commonly known as a “Replica App”. Replica apps seek to replicate the experience a user would have in print. That’s right, after Apple spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars engineering a product that can be used thousands of ways, many publishers have responded by creating apps with all the functionality of a piece of paper. Another good way to think of it is that a Replica app is like having a PDF version of your publication. Woo – can’t wait to get that one.

Here’s how MIT describes what they’d built:

When people read news and features on electronic media, they expect stories to possess the linky-ness of the Web, but stories in apps didn't really link. The apps were, in the jargon of information technology, "walled gardens," and although sometimes beautiful, they were small, stifling gardens. For readers, none of that beauty overcame the weirdness and frustration of reading digital media closed off from other digital media.

Many newspapers and magazines have followed a similar approach, either building their own apps or pushing content through the Zinio platform, which acts as a bookshelf for Replica content. Even Conde Nast Wired, touted as an early success among tablet publications, is barely more than a replica. Worse, it’s a 400 mb download, so you have to be connected via WiFi to even pull down the latest issue.

Let’s compare those apps with the experiences that other publishers have had with native iOS apps. The Daily is one of the best examples of leveraging all the native capabilities of the iPad and other tablets. With 360-degree photos, numerous interactions and different  behaviors whether in landscape or portrait mode, in-app audio and written commenting and personalized sports, The Daily has built an app that is compelling and engaging. Critics will point to the estimated $30 million launch cost, but that’s not necessarily out of line for a company launching a major consumer product. And for a publisher like News Corp, with numerous content assets, it seems a modest investment for an experimental sandbox to apply to other products.

Beyond the Daily, we can turn to apps like Flipboard, the New York Times, LinkedIn and others to see how to build a compelling mobile and tablet experience.

Many have seized upon the MIT post as proving the case for the mobile web vs. native apps. To little surprise, many of those touting that outcome are those who have a vested interest in the mobile web.

The reality is a bit murkier. I’m a believer in HTML5 and the mobile web. But I also think that in the near-term, native apps provide a better user experience than the mobile web. But don’t take it from me. Let’s see what Jakob Nielsen has to say:

“An app can target the specific limitations and abilities of each individual device much better than a website can while running inside a browser.”

Even Marc Andreessen, a mobile web advocate notes that:

"The application model of the future is the web application model. The apps will live on the web. Mobile apps on platforms like iOS and Android are a temporary step along the way toward the full mobile web. Now, that temporary step may last for a very long time. Because the networks are still limited. But if you grant me the very big assumption that at some point we will have ubiquitous, high-speed wireless connectivity, then in time everything will end up back in the web model."

I am in complete agreement with Marc Andreessen on this. Ultimately, we will get to the full mobile web. It is a better model, just as the web was a better model for content and software distribution model than desktop applications. But for the near term, a pure mobile web model creates a lesser experience for the user than does a compelling native app.

And a great app doesn’t have to be 100% native. What many developers are learning is that using native code for navigation and the core experience, while serving up content using HTML5. LinkedIn has done a wonderful job of this in their latest tablet app. You can build a fairly compelling HTML5 app (see the FT or sister company The Economist Group's Electionism app) but it's not quite as tight as a native app and brings the challenge of findability (no app store) and no presence on the home screen. But it's also important to keep in mind that the FT made a significant investment in building their HTML5 apps (in fact, they acquired the developer). Realistically, you probably won't get a great app for $124k whether it's native or HTML5.

So, let’s not look at sales results of crappy apps as an indication that the app economy is dead.  The latest Miley Cyrus movie apparently had opening weekend box office revenues of $46,500 this weekend. Should we extrapolate from this that the movie industry is dead? No. We note that The Avengers did over $200 million domestically that same weekend, and that LOL was just a shitty movie that no one wanted to see.

So, stop building crappy replica apps. Learn more about what your users want to do with your content. Look around at successful apps to learn more about what you might do to emulate them. And go wow your users with amazing apps.

NOTE: Tim Bray added his thoughts to this discussion in a rational and eloquent way:

Browsers and Apps in 2025