I USED ONLY THE Sunday Business Post digital platform for my weekly newsround. The youngest SBP reader accompanied me (at left).
It's actually more work cutting through iOS screenshots to create a ten-minute news synopsis than just using my Sony Xperia Arc to simply record what I've circled in print. Plus, unless I add more effects to the result, the app-ony news presentation is boring on screen. I think it's alright when heard on Audioboo. I took the time to make this short report because I believe the Adrian Weckler and crew are headed the right way in trying to recapture hundreds of paying readers. However, I don't think an iOS app alone will get a result. There must be more channels and that could mean several people on the Business Post staff will need to upskill in programmes we teach at the Limerick Institute of Technology. I offer some ideas below the break.
1. Think Mobile First, Not App-Specific Delivery.
The dream Steve Jobs had wasn't an app-centric world. Iit was a world where the content production process followed more of a straight HTML 5 pathway. That's something our students learn in a BSc degree in creative multimedia. You can still protect your premium content through passwords on web pages, regardless of the operating system that serves them. While apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone are trendy, adopting them as the content presentation pathway dilutes resources and forks the media production process.
2. Make a photostream available.
The iOS app (and its brethren) should let me see photos with comments by the registered subscribers. I know a lot of people who read pictures and whose judgment is influenced by reader comments. Instagram, Picplz, Facebook photos and Flickr photostreams are never going to lose their legions of interested followers. The same philosophy works for broadsheets who have paid for high-quality images.
3. Leverage Audioboo.
The Sunday paper cries out for an audio component and Audioboo has the channel to markets beyond Ireland. This channel could be sponsored by a large State agency, by an enterprise board, or a corporate entity. Microcontent like snippets from editorial, research, or press releases has a business imperative.
4. Push content streams onto YouTube.
Several Irish companies do this already and they have grown brand recognition and followership that way. We are only a few years away from being able to see the Business Post channel on Saorview or bundled as a service with an internet service provider.
Watch on http://youtu.be/jDiTyUAGGQI
