iPad Scribd: Publishers Are Wasting Time, Money, Effort In Creating iPad Apps

[kjk]

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-s...ing-ipad-apps/

Scribd hopes that instead of devoting the time and fees to working with major content design firms, magazines will simply let it create an HTML5 app for them in a matter of minutes. The only price: Scribd wants a share of the ad revenues.

For example, Friedman said, if you bought that Wired iPad app, you’d better have a lot of free space on your device because it takes up 500MB. HTML5, by contrast, shrinks everything down and takes us a matter of minutes to convert. “We’re trying to tell publishers that working with us is a much easier way to experiment with tablets and not get locked into one system,” he added, “given that we’re essentially creating a PDF document that can be read on most smartphones and your Kindle as well, not to mention, the PC.”

Be interesting to see which publishers go the custom tailored route, and which ones go for the widest distribution model.