RESPONSE: iPad Conference — Expanding the Editorial Brand

Monday, I attended the iPad conference session called “Expanding the Editorial Brand,” given by Matt Bean of Rodale, Inc. Matt is the associate vice president of mobile, social, and emerging media and works on publications like Men’s Health and Women’s Health.

After hearing a lot about how to develop iPad applications in my Advanced Magazine Design class, it was great to listen to Matt talk about the decisions that have to be made before the design process begins. Matt immediately eliminated the perception that it’s easy to make an app, or that once you have an app, it will be successful. In fact, news apps are pretty low on the list of top-sellers or most downloaded. Only one percent of those who download an app turn into long-term users. Fortunately, news and reference apps lead the market in repeat engagement.

Matt said that before you start coding and designing the app, you have to get to know your customers, know the different platforms and define what type of product you want to create. You have to think like a user, an editor and an engineer. While Matt doesn’t do any coding himself, he thinks that it will be a big help to at least understand the language and be able to convey your ideas to a developer.

So much of the iPad craze has been this perception that you should just spit out an app as fast as you can, or make an app for everything. However, after listening to Matt’s presentation, it’s far more important to take the time to make important decisions about the app, including whether or not the app is even necessary.