The iPad will change online behaviour
This is no longer a doubt. When the iPad launched some commentators were dubious though. Why buy another device that does what a laptop does? Over the last few weeks we’ve come to the realisation that the iPad isn’t just a lightweight sofa surfing device.
It could bring a new demographic into computing, enabling millions of less tech-literate consumers to get to get online and contribute and consume media in a simpler way using a simpler interface. It could well be one of Sendhil Mullainathan’s Last Mile Opportunities.
Perhaps more pertinently, could it finally lay rest to Rupert Murdoch’s publishing crisis and allow publishers to charge us to read their content online? Rory Sutherland explains the paradox simply: Online content is searchable, instant available and richer. Yet we value it less than walking to a news-stand and paying 90p for content printed on 50 sheets over oversized inky paper. That model is not sustainable any longer so what happens when we won’t pay for online content?Perhaps we’ve been looking to the wrong disciplines for the answer. Perhaps we shouldn’t look to website designers, or micro-payment innovators. Perhaps we should have looked at hardware. The Kindle was weak in terms of delivering rich-content. But perhaps the iPad will change the game by creating a new category of hardware that can isn’t. And perhaps, as Chris Anderson says in the video below, “For the first time people may value this [new] experience enough to pay for it.”
