Publishers creating ‘Purple Cows’
14 July 2010
Anyone who has read Seth Godin’s Purple Cow book will be familiar with the idea of ‘making things remarkable’, in essence the book states the key to success is to stand out from the crowd, it is the unique and remarkable products and services that become successful.
The iPad’s success has been largely due it’s remarkable nature – Apple did something different, they bucked the trend. iPad users do not seem to be too bothered over the fact that there is no keyboard, webcam, or usb ports that other tablet devices have – the fact that this device is so intuitive and easy to use, it has a ‘natural’ feel for consuming media makes the overall experience more beneficial and a better experience than they could hope to find elsewhere.
So how can publishers create remarkable experiences? Publishers need to apply Seth Godin’s advice and create ‘purple cows’ - there are hundreds of publications on lifestyle for example, so what would make a new publication on the same subject create a different experience? What would make this publication remarkable that readers would choose this particular edition over the other 500+ similar titles?
Some of your audience may not be familiar with digital publications, so getting the usability right is paramount. If a reader finds it difficult to navigate then that could be it, no second chances, there are plenty of other choices. The interface of the digital publication needs to be clutter free yet intuitive to lead the reader to key navigation/action areas should they need a function. We wrote an article recently on lessons in lean content, and how some publishers are claiming that their iPad readers are spending over 1 hour reading their magazines on the iPad digital edition platform.
By simply deploying a unique design can grab the readers’ attention, something about the publication that makes it interesting compared to its counterparts.
People like to share, readers want to be the first to recommend material, sites and content to their social networks. Sharing a print version of a publication is a manual process, digital versions can be shared through blogs, social networks and email recommendations.
Equipping the reader with a publication they can take with them anywhere is invaluable. Someone could be reading a digital publication at work on their work desktop, continue reading on the train journey home on their iPad, and then archive an offline version for reference when required.
So, think about creating editions that give the reader something unique, something that stands out and appears different to the other similar titles.
