News and publishing companies, redesigning their business?

A lot of rumours are floating around at the moment about how publishing companies are developing digital platforms for the print offerings.

Condé Nast recently showed off a concept video of Wired’s supposed iTablet application at Wired’s New York store. The video shows Wired magazine as an interactive title that’s updated with not just print but video content. Techcruch meanwhile have seen a demo of Sports Illustrated’s concept for tablet computers (above). The Wonder Factory have worked with Sports Illustrated’s publisher Time Inc to create a video that like Wired’s concept shows how Sports Illustrated would work (below).

These are interesting times for the news and publishing industries. I said some time ago that Apple could come into the market with a tablet based device that would aggregate your favourite titles on an iTablet. Such system would use iTunes to work and manage your subscriptions. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story at the end of October claiming that Apple had in fact ‘sent specifications of the device to Australian media companies in an effort to sound out whether they would be interested in delivering their content to the tablet.’ None would go on the record though.

And Rupert Murdoch is very much considering putting up a paywall in front of his titles while taking these off Google. This could well help the news industry bring in much needed subscription income.

The fact is that news and print as we know will have to evolve and provide more that just words and pictures if people are to subscribe. The evidence though is pointing to the fact that media companies are redesigning their business and their offerings.