Buy iPad, Cancel Newspaper

Interesting post at Fortune about a survey by Missouri School of Journalism's survey of 1,609 iPad owners:

 

• Using the iPad to follow breaking news reports and current events is the most popular use for the device, with 84.4% of respondents saying this is one of their main uses.
• More than three quarters (78.6%) of the users spent at least 30 minutes during a typical day consuming news on their iPad.
• Nearly half (48.9%) of the respondents said they spent an hour or more during a typical day consuming news on their iPad.
• Among the 931 respondents who indicated that they currently subscribe to print newspapers, there is a statistically significant, moderately strong, positive correlation between iPad news consumption and the likelihood of canceling their print subscriptions. (emphasis ours)
• For example, more than half (58.1%) of the respondents who subscribe to printed newspapers and use their iPad at least an hour a day for news said they are very likely to cancel their print subscriptions within the next six months.
• More than three out of 10 (30.6%) respondents indicated that they do not subscribe to printed newspapers, with another one out of 10 (10.7%) saying that they had already canceled their subscriptions to printed newspapers and switched to reading digital newspapers on their iPad.

Wow...as if the Internet wasn't the first nail in the coffin of the newspaper industry (print edition), but tablets like the iPad give us even less reason to flip through big floppy print pages. It's been tough going for awhile...what kind of business model can be successful when you charge for printed content but give away the same content online for free?

The demand for content is out there in high numbers, but the willingness to pay for something so readily available for free puts newspapers in a precarious position.

Will we have to stop calling them "online newspaper"? If most people read their news online or on tablets, they may need to rename their industry.

Beware of Business After Basketball

Last week, after a long day of work followed by being a taxi cab service for the kids followed by me spending an hour in my role as assistant coach to a basketball team of 9 year olds -- I held a conference call with prospective clients in Singapore. Don't, repeat, don't, ever do that.

I was not sharp. I was dull.

My throat got dry and I couldn't talk.

And they no longer reply to my emails. It doesn't matter that I have proven results (it's MY client that was positioned in the top 5 selling iPad apps of 2010, along with Apple's 3 apps and Angry Birds, thank you very much) -- but I was raspy and not overly articulate and that probably sealed my doom.

This is where international business gets tricky for me. I've got clients in the UK and Russia, but they're lovely people who never want to talk on the phone so email is grand. For those who like conference calls, it's going to require me to somehow live a full life during the day and still somehow present myself as credible when they want to talk at their 10 in the morning and my 9 at night.

And I won't forget the bottled water next time either! I'm going to avoid the situation though because, let's face it, I'm not a night person. Don't judge me when I'm braindead after yelling at 9 year olds who can't make a simple unguarded layup for Pete's sake!

Probably one of my favorite commercials ever...

So clever and well done. Good use of a classic tune to tie it together with the point of their ad. Kudos!