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Hearst Reveals Skiff E-Reader

By Steve Smith

The e-reader field is getting more crowded by the day. Hearst subsidiary Skiff offered up the specs and first images of its portable digital reading device before the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was set to launch this week in Las Vegas. The Skiff Reader will try to distinguish itself from the Kindle, nook, Sony eReader, QUE and other e-ink devices with size and portability. The 9 x 11-inch unit will hold an 11.5-inch (measured diagonally) display, which does out-size the large Kindle DX and the Plastic Logic QUE. (More images are below.) This display uses a special ‘metal foil’ technology that offers touch screen interaction but does not require a glass protective coating. The 1200 x 1600 resolution screen will run at 174 dots-per-inch, which should appeal to print newspaper and magazine publishers looking for greater detail. The screen is still black and white, however, and it remains to be seen how quickly an e-ink display at such high resolution can refresh itself as it changes pages. One of the chief frustrations of the e-ink devices is their very sluggish performance and muddy display of images.

The Skiff Reader is putting a premium on paper-like portability. It claims to weigh just above a pound. The battery is expected to last a week under standard usage. The device also sports 3G and WiFi wireless connectivity as well as a USB port for side-loading content from a PC.

The Hearst-owned company is putting print publishers front and center in this model. The company says the Skiff will access an online store of newspapers, magazines, books, blogs and other content from a range of publishers. The Skiff is promising to host print brands with unique design attributes, interactive elements, and dynamic content updating “that help publishers differentiate themselves and attract subscribers and advertisers,” the company said in its statement.

Sprint will provide the cellular network for downloading content almost anywhere, but the wireless carrier will also provide a distribution channel. Unlike the Amazon Kindle (available online only), the nook (available in Barnes & Noble) or the Sony eReader (in bookstores), the Skiff will leverage Sprint’s 1,000 phone retail outlets. Other distribution channels will be announced later, as will pricing and date of release.

Finding the right distribution mechanism for the Skiff could prove its toughest challenge. Obviously, the B&N venue would favor its own device, even if it did open itself to multiple vendors. Borders Books retail stores have been featuring the Sony devices for some time. And Skiff has no brand recognition of its own with which to build much of an online draw to an e-commerce site. Relying on a tech provider like Sprint is dubious, since wireless carriers do not have expertise in selling content-centric devices. In fact, content partners to the major carriers have long complained how poorly these tech-driven companies merchandize mobile content.

To make matters worse, all of the e-ink readers are about to be eclipsed by the relentless hype surrounding the rumored release of an Apple tablet, which many expect to be announced later this month.

Nevertheless, the march of the e-reader devices continues, with voice-recognition innovator Ray Kurzweil announcing a new color e-reader, the "Blio," today at CES.

Sit back and watch the fragmentation begin.

From Marketing Charts. Read full story here.

They are not right about the long-term viability of alternative methods of delivering news via e-reader type devices but this story points out some of the horrible economics currently in place for publishers distributing content on Kindle and similar devices. One missing ingredient the story does not mention - ads. Currently the e-readers don't deliver the ads with the content but presumably when that begins, it will change the equation.

E-readers, Tablets Not Likely To Save Newspapers

Some industry watchers had predicted that e-readers just might save the newspaper industry - but that has yet to happen, despite the fact that e-reader sales are soaring, reports MediaBuyerPlanner.

About six million e-reader devices - including Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s e-reader, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Conde Nast’s Skiff - will be sold this year, Forrester predicts (via EditorsWeblog).

Newspaper publishers get 30% of subscriptions sold on e-readers, and more newspapers are becoming available every day. Digital newspaper distributor NewspaperDirect, for example, is boosting the number of newspapers and magazines available on the Kindle by 1,400, according to Canada’s Globe and Mail.

Newspapers Can’t Make E-reader Numbers Work

But six million e-readers sold are a pittance when compared with the general US population of more than 300 million people, and the number of newspaper subscriptions sold via those devices will be even smaller. “If the Dallas-Fort Worth area has two percent of that, that’s only 6,000 Kindles,” said James Moroney, publisher and CEO of the Dallas Morning News. Moroney crunches the numbers in a Portfolio article, showing how insignificant e-reader subscriptions really are.

Tablets - the New Newspaper Savior?

Tablets are the latest device being touted as the savior for newspapers, MediaBuyerPlanner said.  With touch-screen interfaces, color screens, web browsing and e-reader capabilities, some think such devices will speed the consumption of digital newspapers. Apple’s iSlate is one such device, said to be ready for launch early this year.

However, as these devices are expected to cost as much as $1,000, they may not be considered as “must-haves” for many consumers. And e-readers boast longer battery life and text that is more easily readable.

Newspaper publishers could boost the potential to cash in on tables by fully embracing multimedia content production and multiplatform distribution, points out the Innovations in Newspapers blog, which offers 10 ways newspapers must adjust in order to take advantage of new content delivery systems like tablets and e-readers.

E-reader Audiences More Affluent, Well Educated

One hope for newspapers in terms of e-reader audiences is that users skew higher in terms of education and income than the general public, which means newspapers may be able to attract more luxury advertisers. According to Mediamark Research & Intelligence, e-reader users are 11% more likely than the average adult to own their home and are 87% more likely to have annual household income of $100K+. And they are 111% more likely than the average adult to have obtained a Bachelor’s or post-graduate degree.

“Clearly, users of the current generation of e-readers are highly educated, upscale and internet savvy,” said Anne Marie Kelly, SVP, marketing & strategic planning, at MRI.

 

According to a survey by AdMob and ComScore, IPhone users are 58% more likely to view news via web access on their phones than they are to read the newspaper. They are also 53% more likely to read magazines via their mobile device than read the print version. 

If you (being a person in the print industry) are still wondering whether or not free content via the web is a good idea this should show you once and for all that the future lies in protecting the content that you pay to create and delivering it via print and an e-reader format, like the Kindle or Sony Reader. As we have spoken about before in this blog, the beauty of the e-reader format is that the producer of content controls access.

Here is more information from the survey, so you can draw your own conclusions. Please tell us if you disagree.