As an example, look at the launch of GQ magazine for the iPad compared to Wired. It's been widely reported on May 17th that GQ had sold only 365 copies of the iPad version of their December edition. At the same time Wired magazine reported that they sold 24,000 copies in the first 24 hours after the iPad version of their magazine hit the App store. Why was Wired so wildly successful while GQ was such a flop? It has to do with the way they approached their iPad channels.
Wired treated the iPad channel as a first class citizen. It didn't put out an edition that was three months out of date. It put out the most recent edition on the iPad. Further, if you use the Wired iPad magazine, you'll soon discover that it takes greater advantage of the iPad experience than does GQ. Wired includes lots of video, quizzes, and other interactions that work extremely well on, and appear to be designed specifically for, the iPad. GQ, on the other hand, did little more than slap the images from their magazine into the iPad. Where the experience of using the Wired iPad application is fun and fulfilling, GQ's experience makes you wish you were reading the dead-tree edition.
I see the same thing happening all over the place. As I speak with folks about moving their content to the iPad I'm careful to feel out the client's priority for the iPad channel. When a client tells me that, "We want to move our Web site to the iPad" I know there is going to be a misalignment. You can't move the web site to the iPad - the experience a user expects to have on the iPad is totally different. If all you want to do is make you web site look good on the iPad, than do nothing. It already does ( Unless you use a lot of Flash ).
What is interesting is that I saw exactly the same thing happen when the Web was first gaining ground with companies in the early 1990's. Most companies treated their web sites as brochures intended to usher customers to their traditional material channels. Many still do. An excellent example of this was the sites first offered by Barns & Nobel which was simply a corporate brochure. They completely missed the idea that the web could be used as a first class channel on par with their brick-and-mortar channel. Amazon.com demonstrated that this was a big mistake and today B&N, once the 800lbs Gorilla in publishing, is small compared to Amazon.com.
The iPad isn't another smart phone either. Just because you have your content available on Blackberrys doesn't mean that your mobile experience will simply transfer to the iPad. In fact, the idea that you need to hire a company that specializes in mobile applications to create your iPad experience is misplaced. The fact is no-one has a leg up on the competition. The web design companies are no more prepared for the iPad then are the mobile application companies. The iPad isn't just another platform to target for your mobile application - its a completely different experience.
What I'm saying now isn't totally obvious to the vast majority of companies that are thinking about the iPad as a possible channel for their business. That's too bad. As we saw with the Web some folks are going to make it and some are going to fail. Wired got it right. GQ got it wrong. The publishers, retailers, medical software companies, digital libraries, game companies, video streaming companies, and companies in every other industry are in for a very rude awakening when they find out that their great web site dosn't seem to be working on the iPad. That's because it's not.
The iPad is not just another view of the web. It's not just another mobile device. It's an entirely new platform for personal computing. If you want to succeed with the iPad and grow your customer base, you have to understand that before you begin thinking of anything else. The iPad is as important and distinct of a channel for customers as is brick-and-mortar, mail, television, and the Web.
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