Digital Drivers - Peter Meirs

May 19, 2006

Peter Meirs
Director of Alternative Media Technologies
Time Inc., New York

Peter Meirs, who joined Time Inc. in 1992, is now Director of Alternative Media Technologies for the media giant, where he's responsible for identifying, tracking and selecting emerging technologies, solutions and best practices for meeting Time Inc.'s cross-media goals. In addition, Meirs is an affiliate of the MIT Media Lab and a founding member of the PRISM standard working group—PRISM being the acronym for Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata. Meirs is scheduled to speak on "Technologies Shaping Media" at MPA's June 6 "Meet the Innovators" event in New York.

Q. What do you see as the key benefits in digital magazine editions?

A. We're trying to understand the potential of digital magazines. We've done a lot of experimentation to see how readers respond to these versions, and how they're valued against print. Four years ago, I would have said that digital magazine facsimiles provide publishers with a great opportunity to fulfill print copies with less expensive digital versions, while maintaining the same rate base. I now see digital renditions as more of a tactical tool that allows publishers to support print subscriptions. By this I mean increasing subscriber satisfaction by delivering a bonus digital copy instantly or supplementary content targeted to key subscribers to aid retention.

Q. How is the mobile marketplace shaping up?

A. Mobile promises to be the next great marketplace for content but there's no obvious way to monetize magazine content. The things that make a magazine great—photos, illustrations and styled formatting—get lost in the translation to cell phone and PDA. We have hundreds of thousands of previously published text articles in mobile-ready form but most mobile-content consumers are looking for current information. It's likely that magazine publishers will instead begin to create specific content for mobile distribution. I think most publishers will have mobile RSS and podcast offerings in the next few years. It's still not clear to me what people will be willing to pay for.

Q. Beyond that, are there other things you'd like to see Time Inc. doing in the various digital platforms that it's not yet doing?

A. As you'd expect, most of our digital strategy thus far has been focused on our websites. We've tested digital versions of our magazines over the past four years and while activity is increasing in that area, there's still a lot more we could do. Time Inc. produces a tremendous amount of content besides what appears in our magazines—such as video, audio, unused text and photos—and I'd like to see more digital offerings based upon the aggregation of those assets.

Q. Hollywood Reporter, in reporting on the 2006-07 upfront ad-sales marketplace outlook for the major TV networks, said a few days ago, "Despite near-deafening buzz about distribution to wireless devices, computers and pods of every stripe, outlays for non-traditional media platforms still account for a small fraction of total ad spending." Might the same be said of ad spending in the magazine field, despite its equally ardent love affair with things digital?

A. I have seen reports that show web ad revenue surpassing magazine print advertising by the end of this year. If this is true, it is deeply concerning to magazine publishers who charge higher CPMs and provide less measurable data to advertisers than website publishers. There are arguments that magazines are valued more by readers than digital alternatives and this justifies higher rates compared with web advertising. It comes down to how media buyers choose to spend their dollars. The best hedge for publishers is to integrate their print, web and other digital advertising offerings.

Q. According to ABC and BPA statements, 148 consumer and business magazines had a combined 1.3 million digital subscribers through last June, up 56% from the previous year. Do you see similar—or even greater—industry percentage gains ahead?

A. There are definitely more publishers experimenting with digital editions. A better measure of adoption would be the percent increase of digital subscribers—by magazine—over the prior year. I believe there is a small core audience for digital magazines but the present model—digital facsimiles that meet the formatting rules for ABC and BPA—does not resonate with most readers. I'm seeing a shift in design that I call "Digital Magazines 2.0," that breaks this model. These versions look less like magazines, but are designed optimally for reading on-screen. The text is large enough to read without zooming and the layouts are created with a "landscape" aspect ratio rather than print's "portrait" ratio aspect. The other difference is the way rich media is used. Instead of being wedged into a window on a page, these designs incorporate animation, video and audio seamlessly within the text, to create a much more interactive experience, one that's likely to attract more readers than print products presented on a screen.

Q. What do you most use your cell phone and/or Blackberry for? What's on your iPod?

A. I have a Blackberry cell phone, but the phone is used as little as possible. The Blackberry itself is very important to me because it synchs with my Outlook Exchange and provides access to email, calendar and contacts, in addition to providing decent web access. In fact, in most cases, it has eliminated the need for me to travel with a laptop. I don't own an iPod because I have issues with Apple's proprietary approach to content management. It bothers me that, if I buy a song on iTunes, the only way I can use the song on my non-iPod MP3 player is to put the song onto a CD and then "rip" the CD to an MP3 file.

Consequently, I own an MP3 player that I can expand using SD media, and that is content-source neutral. I listen to podcasts—NPR, Slate, The Onion are favorites. I also listen to lots of classical guitar and other music that I've collected on CDs over the last 20 years.