All submissions must be received by December 31, 2011.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER WILL RECEIVE
Their comic printed in an upcoming Archie Magazine. Grand Prize winner will also receive three one year subscriptions to “three” different Archie comic book titles

2ND PLACE WINNER WILL RECEIVE
One year subscriptions to “two” different Archie titles.

3RD PLACE WINNER WILL RECEIVE
A one year subscription to “one” Archie title.

With all this interest and consumption in the portable technology market, media content providers are poised for a tremendous opportunity to reach out to new digital consumers and regain a following of mature consumers making the transition to the electronic age. However, this will only happen if providers are aware of what to do to attract those consumers.

The last few years have seen the launch of many services aimed at helping print media content providers transition successfully into the electronic age, including a variety of electronic reading platforms that transform paper layouts of magazines into reader-friendly, static, digital layouts that can be accessed anywhere. One of the clearest advantages for publishers in utilizing these services is the fact that their current subscribers now have the ability to view their favorite content without the bad karma of wasting energy and resources by throwing away or having to recycle paper. But what is the value of reaching out in this way to a tech savvy, sophisticated larger audience already used to the participatory and community-centered model of consuming media on social networks and the Web?

Standard, static electronic versions of print publications certainly have their place and are undoubtedly useful, particularly in niche scenarios where content providers need to reach out to smaller, specific groups of people. In order to recapture the general population’s attention, however, and build a new revenue stream by turning a large portion of them back into readers (and subscribers), media publishers must realize that the 21st century audience, unlike their predecessors, are a lot more “hands on” with the content they consume and are big on being engaged as active participants, with the publisher, in the story being told.

A truly interactive mobile publication goes beyond the standard definition of electronic publishing as “computer based production of text” (Wikipedia) by immersing the reader in the experience, both visually and tactilely, and as a result provides greater opportunities and incentive for advertisers to engage with and receive valuable information from the audience.

Compare the standard electronic publication and print versions of the February 2011 edition of Maxim magazine to the  interactive “Maxim HD” app version of the same issue. The standard electronic and print versions are nearly identical,  although the electronic issue is scanned in glorious full color and features wonderful, crisp, high quality images that take advantage of the iPad’s screen resolution. But that’s pretty much it.

In contrast, the interactive HD version of the magazine, which one can purchase by downloading the free Maxim HD app, offers unique features and content that represent an enormous value add for both the reader and the issue’s participating advertisers.

A featured article in this particular month’s edition, titled “Welcome to the Golden Age of American Beer,” highlights 57 beers “guaranteed to give you the time of your life.” In the print edition of the issue, as in the standard electronic version (which is almost identical to a PDF document) each beer is laid out in a multi column, four page spread, with one bottle or can featured larger and more prominently in each column. In print, the reader flips pages. In the standard electronic edition, moving from the various sections requires the reader to constantly zoom in to read the small text of the individual beer profiles, zoom out to get back to the normal page view, and swipe back and forth between the four pages of the spread to compare and contrast the different categories of beer represented in each column.

Josh Eells & Andrew Hetherington/Maxim

The interactive HD iPad version eliminates the clutter, with all of the beers miraculously appearing on a single, scrolling page. Through the use of an intuitive menu of buttons, each category of beer is clearly and succinctly displayed at the top. As the reader taps a category, thumbnail images (as well as the category’s “featured” beer) and short beer profiles appear immediately below for that particular category. Tap another category button, and the images transition fade into new ones. Magic? No. Just a smartly designed, simple, and fun interactive feature that puts the reader in control of the content.

Josh Eells & Andrew Hetherington/Maxim

Another great example of the engaging and immersive experience truly interactive publications provide is a spread in a recent edition of Martha Stewart Living magazine for the iPad. A 22-page feature in this edition called “Objects of Their Affection”  profiles avid collectors of historical and other items with meaning, from Scandinavian mid-century kitchenware to tin dollhouses.

Martha herself gets things off to a brilliant start by showcasing her own extraordinary collection of brass objects from around the world. In addition to reading detailed mini-interviews with the collectors, iPad users swipe through the feature and tap on the audio icons next to pictures of the collectables to hear each owner, in his or her own voice, reflect on their possessions and connect with readers personally, allowing us to really discover the history, meaning, and feeling behind these objects, something not to be experienced in a print-only version.

José Picayo & Miranda Crowell/Martha Stewart Living

In O, the Oprah Magazine’s March 2011 iPad edition, the “Reading Room” feature pages, in which a well known individual profiles the books that “made a difference” in their life, Yoko Ono’s selections are neatly laid out on the screen in a clean grid column format. When readers tap on a book, a short quote by Ono about the work fades into view below.

Additionally, at the very bottom of the screen, four buttons are displayed giving users options not available to them in standard print versions. Tapping the “Buy” button allows the reader to instantly purchase the book through Amazon or Barnes & Noble, while touching the “Read an Excerpt” button immediately transports the user from the Reading Room feature spread to the e-book version of the book. Simply clicking “done” brings the reader back to the Reading Room.

O, The Oprah Magazine

Advertisements featured in many of the interactive iPad magazine apps are also coded to allow sponsors the opportunity to track reader views of each page on which their advertisements appear. This type of feedback and measurement makes sponsorship more attractive and puts advertisers in a more confident position in terms of knowing what their target audience likes and doesn’t like, which could only mean increased business growth for the magazine over time.

The ultimate goal in media publishing is to steadily increase an audience or subscribers and, as a direct result, advertising revenue. In order to do this most efficiently, content producers must attract new consumers to their publications, or risk becoming extinct. By transforming a print publication into an electronic one, publishers are able to reach consumers everywhere, all the time. However, to limit what is presented by not providing a dynamic, innovative experience that digital consumers, particularly a younger audience, have come to expect is bad for business and misses the point of the transition, which is to attract, engage, and maintain a new audience who are no longer seen as simply “consumers,” but as active participants in a electronic community.

In this increasingly cluttered and competitive media marketplace, those publishers who can figure out how to make this happen will be the at the vanguard of the digital publishing revolution and will reap enormous benefits in the near future, when the definition of electronic publishing suddenly and permanently changes from simply “computer based production of text” to “engagement of the reader into a fully interactive story and participatory experience that they simply cannot have elsewhere.”

-Garrad Bradley

You have great ideas, you know how to do it, but haven’t taken the leap of faith. Why not?

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Speaker Bios

Dr. Imran Sayeed

Dan Schawbel

Panelist:

David Hauser – Co-Founder of Grasshopper Group

Chase Garbarino – Founder of Bostinnovation and Pinyadda

Dan Schawbel – Founder of Millenial Branding LLC

Charles Clement – Regional Director of Ashoka Youth Venture

Parie Markowitz – Founder of Bite Sized Candy

Pogue explains that the enormous success of the iPad has been based less on rationality and practicality and more on an emotional attraction that consumers have developed for it, driven in large part by Apple’s ability to innovate and appeal to people’s imagination and curiosity.  He points out that while, on the surface, it may still seem somewhat irrational to go out and buy a new iPad this month, due to the fact that the improvements over the original are for the most part minor, and that new tablet devices with more features have already started to be released, the heart will ultimately win out over the brain when it comes to sales of the iPad 2 because of the Apple mystique, which currently has no equal in the consumer technology business.

Apple’s ability to create beautiful, ultra lightweight, multi-faceted, versatile, portable devices, coupled with its undeniable lead in the development of applications and other content for its platform, as well as offering its products at attractive price points compared to those of its competitors means that it will continue to be the leader in the tablet market as it wins over the hearts of consumers, both new and old, who have suspended skepticism and disbelief long enough to take a bite and be smitten by an allure so sweet, no one can fully explain it rationally. If and when Apple also wins over the minds of naysayers and fence sitters, the iPad and its future incarnations will undeniably be impossible to ever beat.

Read the full article here.

-Garrad Bradley