Positive Signs for Tablets

Last week I wrote about the announcement that five large media publishers were partnering up to gain control over the future of tablet devices. This new development has the potential to substantially impact how people consume magazine and newspaper media in the future and I’ll continue to post about it as developments take place.

A recent article in The New York Times goes into greater depth about the effect all of this could have on the industry. There seem to be many positives here. First off quality of content will improve: “The technology will allow these magazines, and these advertisements, to look as good as they look on the magazine page,” said Louis Cona, senior vice president of the Condé Nast Media Group. If the tablet could be the Web’s equal in terms of targeting and measurement, it has better potential in terms of what the ads look like, being capable of rich visuals and add-ons like video.”

Advertisers will benefit too: “A problem advertisers have had with print is that it’s not very measurable. They know how many magazines their ad was printed in, but not whether readers saw it or reacted to it. “The metrics for print have been far less precise than any kind of metrics around digital media,” said Barry Lowenthal, president of the Media Kitchen, a media agency.”

This consortium of media publishers could influence what new tablets will actually look like (hardware manufacturers would have trouble ignoring the will of all these content providers acting as one) and this would likely mean hardware that is geared more towards an experience rich in images then one concerned more with just plain text.

It’s unclear what the real effects of this new media partnership will be but in the meantime I can’t help getting excited about the potential opportunities for image makers in what will almost certainly be a brilliant new visual medium. Oh yeah, and the possible salvation of the magazine and newspaper industry too.