AdMedic

Here’s an interesting critique on the iPad. Since we don’t have one, I’ll have to take his word on it. But judging from Apple’s record, me thinks this will be a huge hit, and a great opportunity for advertisers. I never was a convert to the whole mobile phone advertising thing. I may still be wrong on that one, but let’s just say with iPad there seems to be hope for magazines, newspapers, and thus advertisers to finally transition to the digital world where they can actually make some money.

As far as if the ‘jury is out’ on the iPad, this is just page one of another blockbuster by Steve Jobs.

For years print has been the loser in a push-pull war against online advertising (OK so, maybe ‘pull-pull’). But the advent of the iPad may beckon the next chapter in this saga. This Boston Globe article highlights 2 Boston companies that are “looking to bridge their online, print, and broadcast branding on the iPad”.

The nice thing is that unlike E-mail, pay per click advertising, banners, twitter, or mobile – the iPad provides a more hospitable format for your advertising message. One can picture that quarter page newspaper ad on an iPad version of the NY Times – in all it’s display-ad splendor.

According to the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper advertising fell to levels not seen prior to 1985 (below $25 Billion). Of course, I imagine if any newspaper publisher had a time machine they would happily dial back to then.

The numbers themselves (28.6% drop  in print revenue from 2008) is not a shocker – give me 10 minutes and I’ll give you 20 more industries with those numbers.

What I did find eye surprising is the breakdown between print revenue and online. Newspaper print advertising revenue was a smidge under $25 billion, while the ’savior’ of the industry was bumping along at $2.7 billion. Read this at your own risk.

They tried radio and print. That worked so well they are now getting into TV media. I never understood their choice to get into print and radio media. Sort of like Henry Ford wanting to diversify into the buggy whip industry. Maybe they will find more success with this. Read the story.