Pandia takes a look at the next generation of online magazine publishing (including tablet like the Kindle and the iPad) and looks at the consequences for search.

We got the Amazon Kindle for Christmas, and we love it. We have downloaded a large number of books already, and the fact that we can carry them around everywhere has turned out to be more of an advantage than we imagined.

The black and white epaper screen is easy on they eye and for reading text it is perfect.

Old fashioned reading

Still, it has to be said: The way the Kindle presents text content reminds us of the very first automobiles. The engineers of the time put an engine into a regular wagon pulled by horses, which was why the driver was sitting outside the carriage, as a coachman would.

Amazon has moved the paradigm of the book over to the computer, but the technological limitations of epaper has made it impossible for them to explore one of the true advantages of the computer: The possibility to present moving images.

No ads

Those of us that live outside the US also get a limited number of black and white photos, and no comics.

The fact is that the Kindle’s limited graphic capabilities makes it impossible for the newspapers that are available to include ads. This may seem like no big deal, and it isn’t — as long as the subscription price is right — but the limitations undermine the ebook and the emagazines as business models. You need to sell ads to make a profit.

Apple has decided to use a regular screen on the iPad instead of epaper. This makes it harder on the eye to read books and other long texts, but opens up a whole new world of book and magazine publishing.

Animated publishing

The following VIV magazine featurette gives an excellent example of what me may expect on this new publishing platform. It also demonstrates why people will ultimately decide to go for reading their magazines online instead of buying that paper copy.

VIV Mag Featurette: A Digital Magazine Motion Cover and Feature for the iPad from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

Beyond the book reader

In the end we will probably see a large number of tablet computers that combine features from ebook readers like the Kindle, smartphones like the iPhone and the Google Nexus, as well as easy to carry netbook PCs.

In the beginning there will probably appear various publishing standards for emagazines that go beyond the limitations of the present ebook formats (MOBI and ePub). Whatever the standards, they will all represent a new type of content that can be indexed by search engines.

Search indexing

Even if people will have to pay for reading these magazines, it will still make sense for the search engines to index the content and present “snippets” or extracts of the content, as such results will guide readers to content they may find useful.

This will also make sense for the publishers, especially when the old timers that are locked into the old print paradigm (read: Rupert Murdoch) have left the scene. The publishers can use such links to get searchers to buy access to particular articles, or — even better — convince them to subscribe.

We guess the publishers will use their regular magazine home pages to present summaries of the magazine articles and let the search engines spider that content. They may also agree to let the search engines crawl all of the magazine content, as long as Google and its competitors agree to republish snippets or extracts only.

Google is already well positioned to take advantage of such a scenario. Through Google Books it has a large database of print publications, including magazines. All they have to do now is to get permission to index the content of the new tablet magazines.

Although Bing/Yahoo! have no similar publication search database, they will probably also be able to find ways of indexing “hidden content” of this kind.

Advertising

The VIV video does not say much about advertising, but the same technologies that are used for publishing magazines on the iPad and other tablets, can be used for advertising. We will probably see a new generation of entertaining and engaging adverts that go far beyond the present Flash-based ads we find on the Web.

That will give the publishers a new source of income, and the advertisers the benefit of combining traditional print advertising with the interactive nature of online media. They will also be able to measure the results of magazine campaigns in real time. That is not possible with printed media.

There is no doubt that Google and Bing will do their best to get a piece of that market.

Here is Wired’s take on online magazine publishing: