WHY THAI TABLET MAGS ARE NOT WORKING
Which should cost more, a print edition of your favourite magazine or its tablet equivalent? In Thailand, more often than not, the answer is the latter.
Late last year many Thai publishers rushed to launch iPad editions of their print editions. That number has slowly increased this year although the majority of publishers in Thailand have yet to go down the tablet route. But some of those who have launched iPad editions are asking readers to pay more than for the print version.
Using the Thai language version of Her World magazine as just one example of what is probably a flawed business model, the print edition costs 80 baht. To purchase the iPad edition costs US$2.00 (90 baht) or £1.79 (88 baht).
Most readers expect digital editions to cost less, not more, and with many developers now touting free print-to-tablet adaptation services to Thai publishers there's simply no excuse for this pricing anomaly.
Earlier this week The Bangkok Post noted there are some 45,000 Internet-enabled iPads in Thailand currently. The market inside the kingdom is small enough anyway without creating pricing issues on top.
2 comments:
There was an article today about the new zhAke app, which is supposedly #1 for iPad apps in Thailand. Definite potential with the layout, but they need a lot more content. I think all the publisher has to do is send them a pdf, which would require a lot less work than developing their own app.
Thanks Paul, much appreciated.
We can add this to the dozen or more companies that are now trying to persuade Thai publishers to develop tablet editions of their print publications.
The whole point, in my opinion, is that simply taking a PDF and creating a tablet app is the wrong way to go. Magazines are designed to be read in print. To take full advantage of tablets, publishers need to redesign and rewrite their content - and that's where the investment is needed.
This whole rush to create tablet apps reminds me so much of a similar rush to develop page-flipping editions three years ago. Who reads them now?
Sadly too, the Bangkok Post story about this development from Zhake reads like a press release. There's nothing in the way of facts about the market for tablet apps in Thailand which - I believe - is simply not there.
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