Still Not Going To Do This Every Day

Quittner has a nice discussion going on about Time magazine’s experience with the iPad over at his Third Screen blog; my contribution:

Not to bash Jarvis (and JQ, very nice job of moderating; I agree that this isn’t a forum simply to rip on him, though with a post titled “And the horse you rode in on,” you can see why readers might be confused), but this debate is a little silly. Criticizing the iPad app because it doesn’t have the same functionality as the Website is as pointless as criticizing the Website because you can’t wrap fish in it. I agree with Josh that they’re providing totally different experiences to the reader.

My issue is more with the value proposition, and, specifically, what Time magazine is. If you think, as I do, that Time’s value is mainly functional—that is, it produces bits of information of some value to you about the world—than paying $5 to get the same information that you can get for free on Time.com seems dubious. If, however, the value is that it provides an amazing experience—graphics, design, photo, rich, smartly-done stories—than I’m game. After all, I subscribed to McSweeneys for years just because it looked really cool, even though most of the stories, to be honest, kind of sucked.

So far, it seems that Time’s main value proposition isn’t so much that it’s giving you something that’s better than it it is that it’s giving you more–more pictures, video, etc. But more isn’t the same as better, and while I’m not surprised Time did well out of the gate (hell, I bought the GQ iphone ap when it came out, just to see what it was like) the proof will come in the months ahead, when it stops being a novelty item and has to compete on its own merits.