Get ready for the tablet revolution

When we launched this blog one of the early post, Aug 12, was “are paperless newspapers about to save an industry?” It’s far to early to say, “we told you so” but the since that post the we have seen some real momentum on this front.

At the time we were writing about Plastic Logic’s development of it’s ereader which earned good revues at leading trade shows. Since then of course Apple have stepped into the market with the iPad.

At our  Digital Lounge in London last week, part of the Future of Digital Content project, David Rowan, editor of Wired in the UK, showed a video that demonstrated how the guys at Wired see their magazine adapting to the iPad/tablet device world.

They talk about moving beyond the static notion of ink on paper and making material in the magazine interactive. For ad agencies this offers potentially huge opportunities for new interactive adverts. Adverts for cars can now come to life enabling people to view not just a static photo but potentially a video or event look at the car from different angles and see inside. While articles could be tweated about or posted to people’s Facebook page.

For traditional publishers who are seeing their ad revenue moving online this could be the lifeboat they have been looking for.

The art guys and editors at Wired seem very positive about this and a search on google news shows other newspaper and magazine publishers exploring the possibilities that light, portable and smart devices the size of a traditional magazine or newspaper can offer.

As they say, watch this space.