Category Archives: Media & Publishing

Goings on in the area of online media and publishing

The 77% Daily

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Excellent study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism on the Tablet Revolution. You can see it here.

This looks like a pretty comprehensive study on how people are using Tablets with a focus on understanding news usage.

  • 77% of tablet owners use their tablet every day
  • 67% browse the web daily on their tablets
  • 54% receive email daily on their tablets
  • 53% of Tablet users get news on their tablets every day, and they read long articles as well as headlines
  • Other popular daily activities on tablets include 39% use social networking, 30% play games, 17% read books, and 13% watch movies or videos
  • 3 in 10 tablet news users say they now spend more time getting news than they did before and that they are turning to new sources.
    Even more interesting is that tablet news users now prefer their new devices over traditional computers, print publications or television!

Publishers Take Charge

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In August the Tribune Company announced that they were working with Samsung on a discounted or free tablet with a news subscription.  Today the Philadelphia Media Network made good on a early promise for a similar deal.  They have chosen an Android powered tablet, the Arnova 10 G2, to bundle with one and two year digital subscriptions.

It’s not surprising to see print media move in this direction.  We have heard a lot of interest in this type of thing from publishers who see tablets as a way to revive their moribund business.  It should be interesting to see if these types of bundles take off.

The Gamer In All Of Us

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I saw a brief blurb in TechCrunch yesterday about a company that recently launched beta versions of iOS and Android apps that turn healthy eating into a game.  This got me thinking about games and gaming overall.  Jane McGonigal of The Institute for the Future has done tons of research on games that is just fascinating, including developing several alternative reality games such as World Without Oil, Cryptozoo, and Evoke.  It is worthwhile to check out her website at http://janemcgonigal.com/.  She also has an interesting book out earlier this year called “Reality is Broken.”

There are many opportunities to make games that add value to people’s lives, Jane is great at getting you to look at everything you are doing for the potential to make it a game.  She also has a great list of practical advice for gamers – and parents of gamers – check it out here.