Magic Town: A Place Where Stories Live?

Destination websites have always been attractive to those searching for that one place where they can find everything they want under one roof. The challenge is often to get competitors to collaborate and realise that working together often makes more sense than duplicating cost and effort. Often it needs a third party to pull the competitors together and present the range in a neutral and compelling place.

The Magic Town platform is being launched by Mindshapes with the aim of creating a compelling online site, where children aged from two to six can find interactive classic fairy tales and children’s ebooks. Mindshapes envisage that the parents of children do not want to spend all day trawling the app stores and web looking for suitable and engaging stories for their children and by offering a one stop shop they will capture the growing market. They have got the support of publishers such as Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster and are reportedly in discussion with more. The Magic Town, will also be available on the iPad and is planning to operate on part free part subscription model with some 20 titles available free and subscription access to the full catalogue costing £7.99 a month, or £49.99 a year. They estimate that some 200 stories will be available on the platform in the first year.

  

Mindshapes was founded in 2010 and last year it raised £3.1m in a Series A funding to launch two destination hubs; Magic Town and Language City. Magic Town is accessible via an app and web browsers whilst Language City is browser only. The business model mix of free and subscription, is a logical and one that could resonate with busy parents who may be happy to subscribe to a single and  trusted service.

The challenges we see are not huge but are significant. The model is not one that is easy for publishers and especially ones which carry heavy development costs and hold potentially significant secondary rights. We are reminded of the Jesuit maxim, "Give me a child for his first seven years and I'll give you the man". The target age group is itself relatively small, some 3 years and where do their readers go then? Can they extend the offer or create a follow on offer as the children grow or that can be shared with their older siblings? Will the offer be extended to cover all books in the target age range or remain with just web and app offers and will that be enough to satisfy the needs of the parents? Finally will publishers embrace Mindshapes as just another digital ‘experiment’, or see it as a serious strategic channel and direction?   

We watch with interest at this venture into the world of Spotify for books.

What is an App and what is an eBook?

What do apps and ebooks have in common and what do they have that makes them different? When is a book an app and an app a book?

At first the answer appears simple and straightforward. An app is a program that you download onto your smartphone or tablet that is interactive, informative and is cheap. Many apps soon start to become essential real time essential information feeds to navigate, inform and entertain us they are like real time applications. An app is a self contained unit it may go elswher to get its content and information but everything is rendered within the app. An ebook is a digital book and for the vast majority are no different to the physical book and even contain the same black pages. The ebook is a lower level container of content that can hold multi media but goes elsewhere to render it on a digital device.

They are very similar, or can be very slimilair and may be viewed as different digital containers.

As we wrote earlier this month the rights issues are also very similar and can also create new challenges.

Enter Apple who not only introduced the app but also would like to own the term exclusively. We have seen them build their walled app garden, first demanding 30% on all revenues , then dictating the development tools to be accepted, then launching their Apple only authoring tool, and now find them attempting to redefining the ebook.

Apple are trying to define the difference between an app and an ebook. They have informed some creators that their enhanced ebooks are in fact apps because they contain moving animation and images and have been enhanced!

If this is a misunderstanding from Apple then we move on. However, if they have really started to separate ebooks, enhanced ebooks and apps then we could be in for some ambiguous times. We have to also be aware of the price point differences between apps and ebooks and therefore some would suggest that enhanced ebooks should cost more than ebooks and certainly more than apps.

It’s somewhat ironic that a company who has such a long and loyal media and creative following is apparently trying to now convert them into serfdom and shackle them to their iWare. Apps and ebooks have to be platform agnostic and media enhancement does not make an ebook an app.

Source article: Apple's iBooks And App Store Price Out Creativity

Daylight Robbery

Window tax was introduced in England and Wales in 1696, effectively taxing houses by the number of windows they had. Many windows were merely bricked up and impact can still be seen today in many old buildings which is where the phrase 'daylight robbery' comes from. Like many unjust taxes it itself can change people and their relationships with previously trusted parties.

Google have now created their own tax in response to Apple's tax. Some would say ‘anything you can do, I can do better,' First it was mobile phone platforms, now its payment toll (tax) booths.

Apple first raised the hairs on most publisher’s necks when it declared that it wanted a tax cut of everything bought on its iPlatform. Whatever logic, 30% was the demand and they effectively opened up the first subscription toll booth on their stretch of today’s super highway.

Google then stepped in announcing their own payment toll both called 'One Pass'. It was different is some ways, but very similar in others.However the cherry on the top was that they choose to only levy 10%. Google’s ‘One Pass’ payment system for magazine and newspapers also gives publishers greater freedom to offer different deals though different channels and importantly maintain a close relationship with their subscribers. However both charges appear extreme when lined up with merchant card charges.

One unfortunate aspect of this high profile sparring is that Apple may just get off the hook from landing into heavy antitrust concerns over its iPad newspaper subscriptions services. Andris Piebalgs, an EU commissioner, wrote in a response to questions from a Belgian member of the European Parliament that the commission ‘couldn’t judge whether Apple has a dominant position because the tablet market is “relatively new and evolving.’ In the US, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are looking into whether Apple’s plans may violate US antitrust laws. The Wall Street Journal reported, that the US inquiry is preliminary and may not develop into a formal investigation or lead to any action against Apple.

So in the minds of the market, 10% plays 30% and its going to be hard for Apple, if as expected, Android tablets join Android mobiles in dominating the market. It also makes Amazon look almost saintly and a victim.

Finally, any self respecting media organisation will now start to think twice about the app-based model of distributing content and move towards a new level of web-based services based on a HTML5 world. Apps offer so much but now clearly carry a new and dangerous health warning to media businesses. It is somewhat ironic that its was another Steve Jobs edict that raised the profile of HTML5. Some say that his greed may hasten that world he desired and it may also now drive a Flash based revival. The one thing that is certain is that publishers do not welcome having to pay taxes every single time they deliver value to consumers.

Can We Secure Our Privacy?

Hot on the tail of this year's Facebook issues over privacy and the question of Google's Street mapping program collecting extra data on wifi security, a class action lawsuit has been taken against Apple claiming personal data is being passed around on iPad and iPhone users without owners them being notified or compensated. They are also considering a similar action against Google over personal data on Android applications.

The Wall Street Journal report that the claimant, Jonathan Lalo of LA, said Apple and a group of mobile application developers were selling personal data, including his age, gender and location to ad networks. The suit states that Lalo "did not expect, receive notice of, or consent to Defendants' tracking of his iPhone app use and did not want Defendants to engage in such activity’.

The case papers allege that many applications collect too much personal data and enable users to be individually identified. They claim that many firms and advertisers are able monitor and identify individuals via Apple’s unique device ID which they feel is not adequately restricted by Apple. This claim is supported by researchers from Bucknell University who recently proved that individuals can be identified this way. Apple’s stated policy only allows data to be shared with third parties if an app genuinely requires the information operationally.

The question remains as to how much of a privacy issue exists and the full implications of any tightening of the rules. However, it once again raises the question about privacy and protection of personal information today.

Meanwhile Mozilla ,the developers of the Firefox browser, have accidently exposed the passwords of 44,000 inactive addons.mozilla.org accounts left on a Mozilla public server. Mozilla's director of infrastructure security Chris Lyon wrote in a posting on the Mozilla Security Blog late Monday night notes that all the passwords were for inactive accounts that have now been deleted and disabled. Mozilla has informed all affected users of the breach by email.

Apple Open Up In a Flash?

We we see a reversal of a very public position we have to ask why and what the driver is. Today we have seen a significant shift by Apple towards its App developer tools and potentially Adobe's Flash.

We have all seen the logical rise of the Android platform. It may not have been the first to the market but it certainly has the right approach today to capture the ground on what looked to be a clear category killer –Apple.

Now Apple has announced that it will relax some of the restrictions it placed earlier this year on app developers and that it will also publish review guidelines for its App Store. Is this the long overdue climb down by Apple or an attempt to placate the people who feed the market – the developers.

Apple website has more than 250,000 applications for download – but previously had vermently blocked Flash but are now relaxing their rules so that developers can write programs for it without using Apple's own software.

The move has many layers to peel back. First it negates the threat of an anti-trust investigation which had looked possible after Apple blocked apps written using Adobe software tools. Second it positions Apple to slow down the clear shift to Android.

Market Reachers IDC now predict that Android will overtake Apple’s iOS platform by 2014 and will increase its current market share from 16% to 25% whilst they predict Apple’s iOS's market share will drop to 10.9%. This is obviously just a forecast but we have to acknowledge some significant sales of Android powered smartphones with the likes of selling Motorola 2.7 million and HTC 5.4 million smartphones in the last quarter and the likes of Samsung, Dell and LG still to make their impact. Andriod through its wide adoption by manufacturers is now hitting Apple both in the US and in the wider global market.

Third it potentially lifts the threat of investigation by either the United StatesDepartment of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) into complaints from AdMob, an analytic firm Google purchased earlier, that it was being shut out of iOS and couldn't collect statistics about ads on that operating system.

In April, Steve Jobs published his infamous open letter to Adobe "Thoughts on Flash", which was very scathing on Flash's performance, security, reliability and usability on a touchscreen device. We welcome the new move and now hope that Flash can at last be used on the Apple platform and Steve Jobs will step back from forcing the industry to spend development effort in order to protect his business.

However we have to be cautious as exactly what Apple will allow and how it will allow it but the wind is certainly shifting and for the good of all.

Flash Fires

Adobe’s Flash toolset is a very widely used on websites and powers animations, media players and other multimedia elements.

The fractious war of words between Steve Jobs and Adobe has once again been escalated by Jobs. First Apple changed their app development rules and in doing so ‘black listed’ Adobe’s CS5 toolset that would allow developers to quickly translate Flash code to run on the Apple platform. The initial move by Apple effectively forced developers to develop two applications - one for Apple products and one for everything else.

Jobs wrote openly stating that Adobe’s Flash is not fit for an era of smartphones and touchscreen devices and that experience had shown it results in "sub-standard apps".
Adobe response was to turn its back on Apple and embrace Google’s Android platform and also RIM, Palm, Microsoft, Nokia and others. Jobs may say many things about Flash but if it performs on the other platforms, he may be seen as more of a control freak than many even think today. More importantly, he has to keep the app developer community onside and they have the power to say enough is enough and focus elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Adobe have now decided to practice what it preaches and will giving everyone of it employees a free Android-based mobile phone and they will demonstrating an Android version of Flash at Google's I/O conference this month.

Google is caught somewhat in the middle, happy that there is a differentiator between Android and Apple and one that also supports its products including Gmail and Youtube. But it is also a supporter of HTML5 and H.264, which are the competing standards to Adobe's Flash.

Some would say that it is total hypocrisy for Jobs to described Flash as "closed and proprietary". Importantly we have to also recognise that in 2008 Steve Jobs said on the Kindle and reading, "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore... The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore.”