Martha Stewart Living publishes first multimedia magazine

  

On November 10, Martha Stewart Living magazine launched its premier digital edition created especially for iPad. Like most things Martha Stewart does, jumping into digital publishing is bound to be a very “good thing.”  In this video Martha explains her decision to add a digital edition of MSL, which just celebrated its 20th anniversary. 

There is plenty to like about MSL's digital format, with its dynamic how-to's, rich photo panoramas and slide shows, and documentary-quality video features. It's an extraordinary example of what can be done editorially thanks to advances in electronic publishing and camera technology. 

For example, digital MSL has two video features: one on artisanal cheese making and another about fishing in Alaska, each shot using one camera (i.e. RED camera) that captures still and moving images. Now, a subject can be covered for an array of media platforms, working quickly, economically, and to very high editorial standards. 

According to Eric Pike, MSLO's creative director, Adobe’s digital publishing suite makes it easy to incorporate moving images and interactive elements into a digital edition that's based on the print edition's layout. 

The challenge for print-trained editors, says Gael Towey, MSLO’s editorial director and creative chief, is conceiving stories for multimedia by anticipating how and where digital readers will view them. Publishing MSL on an iPad makes it a mobile magazine and toolbox that can move from armchair to the kitchen counter, into to the garden and out to the local supermarket. 

NEW Myspace …quite a place for transmedia entertainment and cross-media marketers

Myspace relaunched this week as an entertainment platform that now puts content, not people, center stage. Facebook, with its half billion registered users, may have won the race for social network dominance, but judging by this video tour of Myspace's new format, the site could reemerge as an online entertainment powerhouse.

Myspace's new multimedia platform is especially timely considering developments in transmedia entertainment, which breaks storylines into parts and artfully delivers them across multiple media channels. Viewers enjoy a rich and immersive experience when these channels converge, say on a dedicated website ... like the new Myspace. Mobile applications make it possible to view mashed up content on iPad and smartphones. 

NBC's hit TV series Heroes is a model for transmedia storytelling, the central TV story made richer with sub-story lines streamed out using video/film, animation/graphic novels, games, music, twitter and forums, etc. –  for convergence on the show’s website. MTV’s latest teen-thriller Savage County works much the same way. 

If NBC and MTV can host transmedia on their own websites, can’t Myspace serve as a destination aggregator of transmedia productions and cross-media entertainment? It's an exciting thought. 

  

Will commercial sponsors warm up to the new Myspace? Great content and a cleaner, safer social environment will surely help. So does the fact that Myspace still has 122 million registered users worldwide – plus, deep roots in Generation Y who are digitally adept and voracious consumers of entertainment and branded goods. 

Wi-Fi Direct – Rise in consumer connectivity could be a boon for viral marketing

The Wi-Fi Alliance, which oversees the specifications for Wi-Fi tech applications, has set the stage for greater device-to-device connectivity by certifying products such as, laptops, video game consoles, MP3 players, smartphones, printers, and other peripherals, as Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct.  

Why is this important?  With portable content like photos, videos and music taking center stage in the digital consumer experience, Wi-Fi Direct devices meet an important consumer need: directly and easily connecting devices for content-sharing, syncing, printing, and gaming, anywhere without running wires or connecting to another Wi-Fi network.

Many manufacturers are now shipping models equipped with Wi-Fi Direct, which interfaces with other technologies like Bluetooth. Wi-Fi Direct can also be added to older Wi-Fi radios via a firmware upgrade.

This short video shows why Wi-Fi connectivity is ready for the consumer mainstream - and great for viral marketing. The proliferation of Wi-Fi enabled devices will create a massive audience for original, quasi-commercial content that’s meant to be shared. Branded content can take many forms: music, artwork, narratives, video clips, games, coupons, advocacy/affiliation campaigns, and much more.

The Wi-Fi Alliance cites these compelling trends in consumer connectivity: 

- Consumers are quickly incorporating new technologies into their life.  Wi-Fi will enable ordinary people to integrate their digital tools in sophisticated, seamless ways 

- Wi-Fi makes content-sharing personal, dynamic and instantaneous. An estimated 82 million Wi-Fi enabled portable consumer electronics and 216 million Wi-Fi enabled handsets will come on to the market this year, with annual growth projected at 26 percent through 2014. Wi-Fi apps for portable devices will grow at a 50 percent annual rate

- Wi-Fi connectivity is inherently social. In the United States, 64 percent of young people report that Wi-Fi  connectivity helps them maintain relationships with their friends. Moreover, young Americans also report they often gather around devices for entertainment, with about 90 percent of people reporting they have gathered around a portable device to look at pictures, videos, or video games.

- Content is being amassed and it's increasingly portable. It's estimated that American youth now carry about 1,100 songs, 50 videos, and 1,200 photos on digital devices

Hearst Digital debuts awesome ESQUIRE magazine for iPad!

Until now digital adaptations by popular magazines haven’t been all that exciting.  This month’s debut of ESQUIRE for iPad is truly an awesome editorial and technological achievement, however, and it offers a thrilling glimpse at where magazine publishing is headed. 

Developed by Hearst Digital and ScrollMotion, Esquire's iPad app makes each page a rich and dynamic experience. Take the October cover featuring actor Javier Bardem. He strolls right up to your screen and personally welcomes you to the issue as Esquire's masthead and interactive story call-outs fuse into rightful position. 

This video demo shows how the magazine goes very digital while still retaining its hallmark editorial design and quality. For example, photography in the fall style section can be rotated 360 degrees and viewed from various angles. The automotive review opens with a stunning still shot of an Audi roadster that turns cinematic when the driver revs up, roars away and then screeches back to give us a frontal view. Cool!  An article about the World Trade Center’s reconstruction is presented in layers of interactive text, high-resolution images and animation.

Josh Koppel, one of the co-founders of ScrollMotion, whose clients include Hearst, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Simon and Schuster, and The Jim Henson Company, believes digital publishing should not be about putting a PDF version on an iPad; rather, he says digitization should be an additive process that makes each page a powerful multimedia platform.

No doubt magazines have much to gain by publishing digital editions. Consider that Esquire’s iPad app is sold at full price ($4.99) on a per-issue basis - no discounted subscriptions. (The iPhone edition costs $2.99 per issue.) As long as audiences keep coming back (how could they not given fantastic content?) it makes sense advertisers will be lining up, too. 

New Skype features on Facebook give brand advocates greater voice

Skype's release of Skype 5.0 for Windows includes a new Facebook tab that allows users to SMS or call their Facebook friends (even do a 10-caller video group call) right from their Facebook News Feed. This feature could have interesting applications for brand marketers with active Facebook fan communities. 

For example, we might see Facebook friends rallying around one-day deals promoted editorially by Groupon, which offers super-low prices by facilitating group buying online. Since deals are only activated once a minimum quota of buyers has been met, many Groupon users get their friends on board through social networking. Especially hot deals could warrant the extra nudge of a Skype call or SMS. 

Most of Groupon's daily deals are for local restaurants, events, services and retailers, but there's potential for national brands and chains, too. Case in point, GAP recently ran a national one-day Groupon deal that sold nearly half a million "Groupons" valued at more than $11 million.  GAP's Facebook fan page had a role in this success, no doubt, and now with Skype fan endorsements can be even more dynamic. 

For consumer marketers, dovetailing Facebook (for reach), Skype (for advocacy), and Groupon (for high-value, time-sensitive promotion), may be a winning way to leverage fan communities for brand-building, publicizing new products, encouraging trial, or getting momentum behind sales events. 

Abundant social media at NY Fashion Week made everyone an insider

It used to be that NY Fashion Week was for A-listers and industry elite. No more, according to Mashable, which posted about social media’s democratizing affect. For the past six days, from September 9 -16, anyone from anywhere on earth, was able to be a fashion insider via social networks that brought them up close and deep behind the scenes - all for free. 

Back in pre-web days the fashion public waited weeks or even months to see what editors decided to report from the runways. This year NY Fashion Week held nothing back, spewing news and stirring the publicity pot with the help of nimble bloggers, some with VVIP  access, whose simple point, shoot, edit and stream efficiency fed the frenzy. Some designers worked even faster by putting out their own runway photos and video in realtime. 

For me, most notable about NY Fashion Week was the abundant, innovative mix of digital/social media in use: Facebook, Twitter, blogs, mobile, crowdsourcing, live streaming, geo-social, and more. The deluge of content worked to bond fans with designers and with other fans, and surely all the buzz was a huge victory for the fashion business.  During the Great Depression people flocked to movie theaters for a dose of fantasy. For some Fashion Week is a sort of escapism designed to excite and inspire people to get out and shop.  

Publishing's Lucrative Future in Transmedia

Transmedia producer Simon Pulman wrote a compelling post on his Transmythology blog about publishing's need to become intellectual property distributors, promoters and curators. The eBook is just a first step into the vast and lucrative digital realm, and Pulman suggests that soon literary blockbusters may well be conceived from the ground up as transmedia productions. It's easy to imagine all types of material published in an array of offline/digital/social media that together create an extraordinarily rich reading experience.  Pulman adds that publishers accustomed to selling rights may soon retain IP control and exploit their ability to build and mine active fan communities, and drive revenue from for-pay companion content. Here is the link to Mr. Pulman’s insightful Transmythology  blog. 

Fascinating example of Augmented Reality Drama and Transmedia Storytelling

^{This post links to a fascinating example of transmedia storytelling in the form of an augmented reality drama game called Conspiracy for Good. Developed by TV creator Tim Kring and sponsored by Nokia, Conspiracy for Good plays out on the Internet, on a mobile device and offline.  The audience plays the part of activists and supporters of the eponymous organization, Conspiracy for Good, and can join in and help direct the action by solving various puzzles spread across different media.} 

^{From a commercial perspective I am especially intrigued by the use of short narrative video clips designed to build interest and advance interaction. Imagine how a brand might engage fans with an episodic augmented reality series?}