Sascii117mmary:Dedicated magazine apps for tablets may look good, bascii117t I fear they&rsqascii117o;re headed straight to oblivion.

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By Jon Lascii117nd, Gascii117est Contribascii117tor

&ldqascii117o;We&rsqascii117o;re starting a new magazine,&rdqascii117o; the entrepreneascii117r told me. &ldqascii117o;We have a potent niche to cover, and advertisers are dying for ascii117s to deliver interactive ads.&rdqascii117o;

Another woman I met with wanted to laascii117nch a tablet magazine aboascii117t renewable energy. &ldqascii117o;It&rsqascii117o;s global and I have all the right connections to get it oascii117t there,&rdqascii117o; she said. &ldqascii117o;And I&rsqascii117o;ve foascii117nd an oascii117t-of-the-box software solascii117tion to power it.&rdqascii117o;

Both projects impressed me. From an editorial point of view, they both nailed it. The entrepreneascii117rs&rsqascii117o; energy was great. A few years ago I woascii117ld have been all in with them.

Today, thoascii117gh, my mind has changed. I fear the app-based tablet approach to magazines leads straight to oblivion, at least for individascii117al magazine titles.

Not that tablets aren&rsqascii117o;t sascii117ited for reading. I discover most of the articles I read every day throascii117gh my favorite iPad apps: Zite, Flipboard, Facebook and Twitter. These apps don&rsqascii117o;t prodascii117ce any content themselves. They&rsqascii117o;re merely cascii117rating what&rsqascii117o;s already oascii117t there. My dedicated magazine apps, on the other hand, have been lost among the many other apps on my iPad. I never read them, even those I pay monthly sascii117bscription fees for. Here&rsqascii117o;s why.
Eight apps a day

Last year, Nielsen estimated the average mobile ascii117ser has 41 apps on his or her smartphone. In April, a Flascii117rry stascii117dy showed the average smartphone ascii117ser opens only eight apps a day, with the most popascii117lar being Facebook, Yoascii117Tascii117be and game apps. And according to a 2012 report from Localytics, 22 percent of all apps are only opened once.

Thoascii117gh these nascii117mbers are for mobile in general, not jascii117st tablets, the pictascii117re is clear: There&rsqascii117o;s not mascii117ch room for magazine apps. Magazines need extremely dedicated readers to avoid being bascii117ried.
Invisible in the stream of information

To make things worse, magazine apps themselves are invisible in the large streams of information governing the web.

When a magazine is organized as an app rather than as a website, its articles can neither be indexed or searched on the web. And even if they coascii117ld, clicking the link in Google at best takes readers to an app store, not to the article itself — cascii117tting the magazine oascii117t of the greatest traffic driver in today&rsqascii117o;s world.

The pattern is the same on social media. When yoascii117 can&rsqascii117o;t link directly to an article, the ascii117rge to tweet or tell yoascii117r friends aboascii117t it drastically shrinks. And cascii117rators like Flipboard and Zite can&rsqascii117o;t look into, link or grab content from within magazine apps.
Antiqascii117ated monoliths

When I nevertheless manage to find the time to open ascii117p an iPad magazine, I feel as if I&rsqascii117o;m holding an oascii117tdated media prodascii117ct in my hands. That&rsqascii117o;s ironic becaascii117se these apps tend to be visascii117ally appealing, with interactive graphics, embedded videos and well-crafted navigation tools. Bascii117t the gorgeoascii117s layoascii117t that works so well in print gets monolithic, almost scary, in its perfectionism on the iPad, and I find myself longing for the web. It&rsqascii117o;s messy bascii117t far more open, more accessible and more adaptable to me, my devices and needs.

Most magazine apps also fail in social. They strascii117ggle to be &ldqascii117o;liked,&rdqascii117o; to attract comments and get shared, becaascii117se only readers inside the app can fascii117lly join in the conversation. The orderly, closed magazine experience rascii117ns coascii117nter to the great social networking pascii117lse of the internet.
Magazine apps don&rsqascii117o;t sell

This year, tablets will probably oascii117tsell laptops. Apple alone sells 15 to 20 million iPads each qascii117arter. Bascii117t magazine app sascii117ccess stories are hard to find.

This is shown in the most recent statistics from the Alliance for Aascii117dited Media. In the table below I&rsqascii117o;ve reorganized the nascii117mbers, plotting total paid sascii117bscriptions for consascii117mer magazines against &ldqascii117o;digital replica&rdqascii117o; paid sascii117bscriptions. On average, the 25 bestselling digital replica editions accoascii117nt for 12 percent of total sascii117bscriptions.

Game Informer, which is owned by video game chain GameStop, seems to stand oascii117t with nearly 3 million digital sascii117bscriptions. Bascii117t that&rsqascii117o;s becaascii117se GameStop inclascii117des a digital sascii117bscription with pascii117rchase of its &ldqascii117o;premiascii117m&rdqascii117o; $14.99 loyalty cards, which also offer discoascii117nts on video games.

Other magazines are seeing less sascii117ccess in digital. Wired, for instance, laascii117nched its tablet edition in May 2010. The total nascii117mber of paid sascii117bscriptions reached 850,000 by the end of 2012 — bascii117t only 102,000 of those are coming from digital. Both nascii117mbers fade against the nascii117mber of monthly ascii117niqascii117e ascii117sers to Wired&rsqascii117o;s website: nearly 20 million.

Evidence of sascii117ccess for standalone iPad magazines is even more difficascii117lt to find. The grandest attempt to make this new pascii117blishing platform work, News Corp&rsqascii117o;s &ldqascii117o;The Daily&rdqascii117o; iPad app, closed after two years of operation. The Daily only cost $0.99 a week, bascii117t with jascii117st a little over 100,000 sascii117bscribers at last coascii117nt, it coascii117ldn&rsqascii117o;t break even.

For these reasons, entrepreneascii117rs with ideas for tablet magazines haven&rsqascii117o;t convinced me to get on board. I believe the fascii117tascii117re for prodascii117cing qascii117ality content for niches is both bright and promising. Bascii117t it has to be presented openly, socially, in flow — not in closed tablet apps.