Tag Archives: Conde Nast

#PPAdigital: 27% of Wired UK subscribers have downloaded iPad app

Conde Nast has sold nearly 500,000 apps of Wired UK, GQ and Vanity Fair combined, Rupert Turnbull, publisher of Wired UK told today’s PPA Digital Publishing Conference.

At first numbers were modest but as tablets have grown in popularity, app sales have increased, he explained.

The publisher has sold 474,825 tablet editions of Wired UK, GQ and Vanity Fair. The number of downloads by print subscribers who read the app is not included in that figure. Turnbull said that 27 per cent of print subscribers have downloaded an iPad app edition, which is bundled into the print subscription.

Turnbull said he expected the magazine not to work on a smartphone, adding that he thought “there’s no way” they could publish a “full magazine on a three-inch screen”.

“But consumers are much more savvy than that,” he said. “They read it, but read it differently.”

Research shows most users of the Wired UK iPad read in linear form.

He also revealed some good news for advertising. When asked “are you more likely to skip past ads on the iPad edition?” 82 per cent of Wired app users disagreed.

He also said that 59 per cent of Wired UK’s app users agreed that ads with good interactive content are just as enjoyable as editorial.

How Conde Nast is dealing with iPad advertisers

An interesting post on Rob O’Regan’s blog looking at how Conde Nast has developed best practice guidelines for advertisers who want to work on its iPad apps. To create the guidance for clients, the magazine publisher has been conducting extensive research on how readers are using and rating the apps:

To learn more about these early adopters, Conde Nast is combining its in-app and in-person research with usage software built into its apps. Results from the in-app survey showed that 80 per cent of users who downloaded a Conde Nast digital magazine app said the content and experience “met or surpassed their expectations”, and 83 per cent said they were likely to purchase the next month’s edition.

Full story on emediavitals at this link…

Mediaweek: Condé Nast launches business competition for editorial staff

Condé Nast has launched a competition for editorial staff in the US to come up with new business ideas and projects. The pitch deemed to have the most money-making potential will be rewarded with travel credits, reports Mediaweek, which suggests that the publisher is introducing more sales department incentives into the editorial operations of the company’s titles.

Full story on Mediaweek at this link…

Conde Nast appoints new chief technology officer

Magazine publisher Conde Nast has a new chief technology officer – whose first task will be to manage the expansion of the group’s publications, according to Wired.com.

Conde Nast, which is the parent organisation of Wired.com, announced the arrival of Joe Simon, formerly chief technology officer at Viacom, yesterday. Wired.com says the new recruit will be faced with the job of extending the company’s portfolio onto multiple platforms.

Periodicals of all stripes are staring down plenty of challenges these days, due to the massive proliferation of alternate entertainment and information options in these connected times. But they’re also faced with a major opportunity: to expand beyond the paper and website formats. The iPad is clearly a step forward in this regard, and looks fairly innovative now. But it’s by no means the final word on digital magazine publishing, according to Sauerberg, Jr., who hopes his new hire will expand the company’s reach potentially to dozens of further platforms.

See the full post here…

Conde Nast brings make Gourmet magazine – as an app

There was much clamour last year when Conde Nast announced the closure of specialist food title Gourmet. Now the magazine has been resurrected as an app and new website, Gourmet Live. Both will make use of Gourmet’s archive of material, but the app, which will be launched towards the end of the year, will feature new, bespoke content for iPad and tablet readers, the video below suggests:

“Because Condé Nast already has one strong-selling food magazine, Bon Appetit, it can afford to experiment with the Gourmet brand a little. What Conde Nast may discover is a new model for delivering the premium content of its magazines,” reports Mashable.

The free-to-download app will prompt users to pay for additional services and content and is promising a rewards system for readers. But as Lloyd Shepherd suggests is this a “gaming” element or ‘iFeudalism’?

Gourmet Live is hiding some content from most users (so isn’t this a kind of paywall I can’t see?). And if I do things in a certain Gourmet-approved kind of way, I get to see that content.

This is wrong for two reasons. One, it hides content away, so all the paywall arguments apply here, but doubly so, because at least there’s a simple way to unlock paywalled content – by paying. Here, I have to jump through some hoops.

And there’s the second problem. It changes the relationship between publisher and reader. It makes the reader a kind of supplicant, willing to perform tasks to get treats. And, frankly, it’s just a magazine, you know? Who can be bothered?

MinOnline: GQ sells just 365 copies of iPad edition

The Conde Nast title, one of the first to appear on the iPad, sold 365 copies of its December ‘Men of the Year’ issue. Priced at $2.99 per download, which is $2 less than the print edition’s price, this totals $1,091.35. Not the salvation the newspaper and magazine publishing industries might have hoped for, but publisher Pete Hunsinger is happy with the result, reports MinOnline:

This costs us nothing extra: no printing or postage (…) Everything is profit, and I look forward to the time when iPad issue sales become a major component to our circulation.

Full story at this link…

(via Mashable)

Wired for iPad edition set for summer launch

Techology magazine Wired is set to release a digital edition for the iPad by summer. Editor-in-chief Chris Anderson announced the planned launch on Friday at the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design conference (TED) in Long Beach, California. The first iPads are scheduled to go on sale in March.

In a report of the conference on Wired.com, Anderson said: “We have lots of questions about our future. The good news is I think we found part of the answer (…)We think this is a game changer.”

Condé Nast, publisher of Wired announced last year that it would have a digital version of Wired available before the iPad was even official. For the last six months, Wired creative director Scott Dadich has worked with Jeremy Clark from Adobe to design the Wired iPad version.

The conference attendees were given a demonstration by Clark on a supersized iPad using content from the March edition of Wired.

According to Wired coverage, Anderson believes that the iPad “allows periodicals for the first time to do digital content with all of the same values and artistic range that are the hallmark of print magazines”.

Readers would be able to drag left and right to navigate articles; once choosing an article, they would navigate up and down to scroll through the story. By turning the device horizontally the user will also benefit from the rotating display system to view a double-page spread. The device will also have opportunities for interactive advertising.

Anderson did not mention how much the digital edition would cost.

Condé Nast launches monthly GQ iPhone app

Following in the footsteps of the Guardian, GQ’s magazine has announced its first monthly application for the iPhone.

According to a report from paidContent.org, the US version of the app, which offers an exact replica of the magazine, has been approved by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), which means purchases of the app will count towards the magazine’s circulation figure.

Unlike the Guardian, where a one-off fee is paid for unlimited access to content, in the UK GQ is charging £1.79 for each edition.

Publisher of GQ, Conde Nast, is also reportedly planning more iPhone apps for its other magazine titles.

NYTimes.com: Publishers to launch online magazine newsstand

From 24 November, but worth flagging up this project in the US: a consortium of magazine publishers which includes Time Inc. and Condé Nast are to build an online magazine newsstand in ‘multiple digital formats’, reports the New York Times.

“The formation of a new company to run the online newsstand – sometimes characterized as an ‘iTunes for magazines’ – may be announced in early December. Time, Condé Nast, Hearst, and Meredith all intend to be equity partners in the new company, although the deals have not yet been signed.”

Full post at this link…

The end of Gourmet – a photographic view

Last month Conde Nast announced the closure of luxury food magazine Gourmet in a move by the publisher to cut costs, which saw several other titles shuttered.

Marking its closure the title’s former art director Kevin Demaria has published a collection of photographs entitled ‘Last Days of Gourmet’ – an office landscape that meant a great deal more to Demaria, as he explains:

Kevin Demaria's Last Days of Gourmet collection“In shock and disbelief, using garbage pails for long exposures, I took these photos of the last few days at Gourmet. Although at times it was hard for me to shoot the common places in the offices at Gourmet, I knew I needed to document where I loved working for the last eight years. It was a unique opportunity to have worked with such amazingly talented people in such a friendly work environment. Gourmet became my family and I will always look back proud to have been part of such an amazing magazine.”

(Hat tip MagCulture.com)