I’ve just spent ten days with my iPad and a winning smile.
It’s been amazing, it’s worked beautifully with two exceptions, both related…
1. Video. You can create and edit a video quite easily BUT the rendering really stresses the iPad. It’s very difficult to get the video off the iPad when you don’t have a computer nearby.
2. Screen recording – There is a solution for this but as soon as the video goes over 2 minutes – the rendering time gets crazy and you can’t do anything else.
Podcasts can be done in GarageBand for one person jobs or two people in the room – but again – getting them off the iPad if you don’t have a computer is an issue.
While away we launched the latest edition of DM Magazine I am super excited about it. It seems not everyone shares my enthusiasm! One of our longest serving Challenge family members took the trouble to compose a rather long email and given the constructive nature of it – I thought I’d respond here.
”I’m still puzzled by the fact that you have decided to produce something that can only be consumed on an IPAD. I know you are a Apple Addict, but could you please explain me how this makes a good marketing strategy?”
I am an Apple addict, but I’m also a starving crowd addict and, i’d like to think, a rational marketer.
The iPad turned 2 last week. You’ll recall JP the very second it was launched, I said this was this biggest gamechanger to computing in my lifetime. It was the ”computer” for Joe and Jane Smith – not geeks like you and me.
Needless to say, I was right.
In the next couple of weeks Apple will announce in the past two years well over SEVENTY MILLION iPads have been sold.
SEVENTY MILLION.
Nothing in the entire history of the planet has sold that many things in its first two years of existence.
NOTHING.
This is a phenomena unlike anything we have ever seen.
My job, as I see it, is to alert you to things that are going to make an impact in your business – the iPad is one of the biggest disruptions you and I have ever seen.
It would be criminal of me not to shake you around and alert you to this.
There are more apps sold every day than individual songs.
When there is a seismic disruption like this – it gives an opportunity to the little guys like you and me to disrupt major players.
Magcast is going to give you the opportunity.
Magcast is nothing short of an all out attack on the established magazine industry – I plan on destroying the very thing I love the most in order to save it.
(not to mention have my own tiny comeback of an industry that chewed me up and spat me out all those years ago)
The handheld device is a revolution and unlike the dot com boom where I was to young and inexperienced to take advantage of it. I’m not going to let this pass. You shouldn’t either.
Over the coming weeks – I’ll make my case in a more coherent fashion but I hope you get my drift.
”What is the Ipad penetration in your customer base? 90%, 50% or 33%??”
25 percent of people who read my blog read it from an iOS device – it was 6% a year ago.
”Does this move produce enough revenue to compensate the loss of all the non Ipad owners from your list?”
Whoa there tiger – that’s a pretty big leap. The fact is, DM magazine is the only thing we do which is iPad only. Everything else we do – Challenge, Immediate Edge, Dominiche, Always Be Shipping, Offline Hero, even the upcoming Magcast product is cross platform.
I created DM magazine for two reasons, show people what could be done with the awesome Magcast technology and provide a micropayment option for people to learn online marketing for the price of a double tall latte each month.
You see JP, this micropayment thing is pretty bloody crucial, the world is learning to expect instant gratification for 99 cents – the numbers are irrefutable – do we go on blindly pretending this massive tidal wave is not there until it’s too late.
Or, do we disrupt ourselves and figure how to delight people in this new reality and make some money in the process.
If you think you’ve heard me go on about iPad stuff you’re going to hate the next month as we lead up to releasing Magcast. And if we lose people off the mailing list because of that, I’ll live with it.
I annoyed people with the Underachiever Method
I annoyed people with Twitter
I annoyed people with Facebook
I annoyed people with ”Winter is Coming”
People hate change, hate disruption, I get that. Not pointing out these changes, would be far worse.
My job is to tell you what’s coming down the pike – and bluntly – this skill and raw sex appeal are the only gifts I seem to have. If I make people uncomfortable, tough.
”How does sharing your revenues with apple, affects your bottom line?”
Apple takes a 30 percent cut of everything we do on DM Magazine. We pay affiliates 50 percent! I’ll gladly pay Apple 30% everyday of the week and twice on Sundays. To subscribe to DM magazine and enrol in the continuity program is one click and enter into a password.
That is INSANE!!!!
Shopping cart abandonment is one of the biggest problems we face in this Industry. Apple has nailed it.
There are many more reasons why this is a no brainer but I’ll save those up for the next few weeks.
”The IPADs are great as a replacement of a printed copy of a magazine, but when it comes to putting things into action i still prefer a keyboard and a mouse. Just the other day, I reviewed a technical magazine that it’s also offered only on the Ipad, and what a waste, all the examples had to be saved and then transfer to a real computer to be able to use them!”
And how is that different from a printed magazine? Obviously, there are things a computer does way better than an iPad – but my market is not geeks, it’s real people, as I type this I’m on a plane from Orlando to Los Angeles, as I always do, I walk the plane and count the devices.
29 iPads
6 laptops
7 kindles
3 androidy tablet thingys (used by Kids of parents who obviously hate them)
I’m an Apple Fanatic because they are where the starving crowd (with money) is. If a metro tablet running windows 8 turns out to work better than an iPad – I’ll dump my iPad in a second and a half. I want to use the best tool for the job – and sitting here in economy on a five and a half hour flight – the iPad is the best tool for the job by so far it’s not funny!
”As an old subscriptor of the now defunct “challengeplus”, I always appreciated that the content was provided in many different formats, Videos, Pdfs, etc. Now it seems that “One and Only One” way to consume your content is the way to go?”
As I said above DM Magazine is the only thing we restricted to a device – everything else we do is totally cross platform.
At the end of the day the iPad is a delivery mechanism (certainly an important one) and I’ll give it the coverage I think it deserves.
But it’s a means to an end – I’d like to think most people are reading my stuff so they can create an online business that makes them some money. Apps and Magcasting (in particular) are an opportunity to do this.
That’s pretty cool.
JP, I really do appreciate the constructive criticism – who would have thought we would be talking about stuff like this when we had dinner at that Trafalgar Square Thai restaurant all those years ago!
Ed
