It’s a Snap App World

In the digital media universe, we are entering an era of pre-packaged, easy-to-buy, easy-to-like and easy-to-use apps. One and a half decade after getting used to the over-ness of the web, it seems like consumers are somewhat tired and overwhelmed by endless searching and an overload of choices. Consumers want to get what they want. Instantly. The applications are preferred as they seem to be an end of that endlessness. We have our favorite recipes in apps in our phones, we check our travel schedule in our Trip It app, read our selected articles in Instapaper app and watch shows on our TV apps.

In some recent consumer focus groups, studying what people like most about their print newspaper, it turned out to be the sense of completion. The feeling of “I have read the newspaper today”. You will never ever finish a web site, it will always be reloaded, reorganized and updated. But you can finish an app. More and more, consumer tell us that some things can be, and wants to be, completed.

The front cover of the latest Wired issue screams “The Web is Dead”. And, maybe, the distractions became too many and the complexity too high for most users. Increasingly, the more convenient solutions on dedicated platforms seem to be preferred.

But the web, as we have come to know it, is not rejected. We will not kiss our browsers goodbye. We will spend more and more time on the internet, but not on the web. The internet and the web are no longer synonymous. The next generation of internet will be the streamed data, packaged data in applications as well as data in things around us.

Or, as Chris Anderson claims in his “The Web is Dead” article: “A future that is less about browsing and more about getting”. Other client software than web browsers as well as different devices will become more and more important and they will be paving the way for the app revolution. Destination web sites are getting less attractive - or at least the content is disconnected from web sites and presented as streams or apps on other platforms where consumers are active (sites that literally get better the more people use them, and smarter the more data they gather from their users). We do to a greater extent use the web as a conversation system, where network effects matter, with streamed information to our selected conversation platform.

At the same time, we will increasingly see media content getting packaged in apps. Media publishers have failed to build conversation platforms, but in the app world they do find a new opportunity.  And if the App economy is Web 3.0, the good news is that users are paying for stuff directly, which is a great idea for any media company.

Also from a creative perspective, the app world is attractive. The editorial teams get better control of the user environment and can curate stories. As information, news and views are diversely available, media publishers needs to deliver a better packaging of the actual user experience. In the curated and controlled app world, the editorial teams can present defined and linear stories offering more of a “silent mode”, for the user to be enjoyed in a relaxed, leaned-back manner. Away from the browser.  And reduced complexity may increase the immersion, making the media content perceived as more valuable. The ultimate aim? To get back to what used to be media’s core competence: high-quality writing/audio and stunning imagery to build up immersive stories.

The new touchscreen devices where many of the apps live, as smart phones and tablets, offer a beautiful environment for these immersive stories with their shiny screens and natural user interface. These are the first devices available in the market that people want to cuddle up with in the couch. And users no longer have to work through clicks and layers of buttons. They are just using their body language, a natural and intuitive interface.

Since publishers seem to believe in a future where they earn more money on the closed platforms, a lot of media products have been, and will be, launched in the app universe. What about distribution? It will be resting on the shoulders of platforms like Facebook, sold in closed systems as for example device manufacturers’ app stores.  These are fitting platforms, a large external environment where media companies can leverage to reach readers where they are, but also very closed systems and that has a lot of consequences. Or, as Tim O´Reilly concludes the “Web is Dead”-conversation in the latest issue of Wired: “Openness is where innovation happens; closedness is where value is captured”.

Sara Öhrvall

Director of R&D

Bonnier Corp., San Francisco