With the rise of sites like Twitter that boast real-time updates and breaking news (albeit some sources may not be credible), will consumers be willing to pay for content? A Pew survey says 82% say no.

I feel like I’ve been having this conversation a lot recently – are people willing to pay for content?  Sadly, as the Pew survey points out, the answer (for now) is a resounding “no.” So why would The New York Times decide to start charging for access to its online content in January 2011? Aside from the obvious (they have to find a way to make money), I’m afraid that they (like a lot of other publishers) are reading too much into the early numbers for digital readership via e-readers and more specifically, the iPad. The success (modest or otherwise) of a limited number of newspapers and magazines on the Kindle and nook are the first signs that the answer could someday be “yes.” Add to this the excitement around the magazine apps being developed for the iPad and other anticipated tablet devices, and the fact that some publishers are charging (or are planning to charge) as much as $3.00 or $4.00 per digital issue and you’ve got just a bit more cause to be optimistic. Then factor in the notion that a converged device like the iPad will start to blur the distinction between “applications” and “Internet” to the point where you (the reader) might not remember if you’re on a site or in an app, and you’ve got publishers basically salivating. Whoa – I just woke up from an awesome dream!

I believe it’s too soon to move to a paid subscription model if you are looking for instant success. Even January (seven months out) is too early. The first problem is audience size – there still aren’t enough e-readers and iPads out there (and I know they number in the millions already) to turn the tide yet. Most magazine issues that have been distributed in “app” format have only achieved distribution in the tens of thousands. My sense of the revenue that they generate would hardly amount to a single four-color page ad. Point being, right now, I’d argue that the proof of scale is glaringly absent. In other words, that the revenue generated by subscribers will outpace the revenue lost as a result of lower traffic hasn’t been established. The second problem is the audience itself – us. We are cheap. I think about all of the squawking about the price of e-books being “unfair” because of the substantially reduced overhead they represent to publishers, and I’m reminded that we basically cannot get our heads around the value of content. It seems we don’t think that authors should be compensated fairly or handsomely for keeping us informed, entertained and enlightened.

So, you know what? I’m with you NYT.com! Sure, you spilled the beans in a clumsy way and I actually think that you may fail initially, but you have seven months to make your case. And it’s an important case to make: Good content has value. Good content shouldn’t be free. And those who create it deserve to be compensated and rewarded.

Well, part of me is relieved that I won’t have to brave the fanboy line anytime soon. That said, the consumer in me might be on board one or two iterations down the line. Apple did a pretty good job against my end-user wish list, but I’m not seeing anything earth-shattering from a media perspective. 

Book publishers seem to have a fair amount to be happy about – namely better revenue than they currently enjoy from Amazon, at least. 

And The New York Times seems to be totally on board (despite the whole no-flash-video thing!). From what I can tell, they’ve struck a good balance between digital and physical consumption of the newspaper, but I don’t see the iPad saving newspapers anytime soon – failing due to both audience mass and a lack of imagination with regard to ad units. I think this stems from the fact that everyone has concentrated only on the audience side of the revenue equation. While I agree that the audience experience comes first, it seems to me that for a publication, which for the first time has seen more revenue come from sales than advertising (and, trust me, that’s not a result of circulation growth or subscription price!), there would be much more emphasis on demonstrating the value that the iPad edition has for advertisers. I was surprised that there didn’t seem to be a magazine demo yesterday at all.

Today, I just don’t view it as a legitimate fourth screen – insofar as it only provides another route into two existing media (Internet, and to a much lesser degree, TV). It might put another nail into the WAP coffin, but it doesn’t displace SMS and is not a legitimate contender for what print dollars still remain out there. At this point, all it promises to do is reproduce print ads in all of their 2-D glory in about a third of the space – there’s no way I’m going to pay extra for that or the limited incremental circulation this will represent over the next two years. Where’s the interactivity? Where are the parameters for rich executions? Where’s my measurement data?

There’s potential (beyond super-absorbency – sorry, had to do it) in the iPad to be sure, but it’s not there yet, and I can only hope that it will be a catalyst for things to come.

I’ve been reading so much about the (presumably) soon-to-be-announced (tomorrow!) Apple tablet, that I (decidedly NOT a fanboy) am actually kind of excited. I do love this pre-release hype. It makes the Apple tablet out to be some sort of gadget geek dream receptacle. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement, but the realistic, logical side of my brain keeps reminding me that the long list of as-yet-unfounded “leaked details” reads more like the wish list of today’s über nerd.

I’ve heard that it is going to change TV viewership. I’ve heard that it will change newspaper readership. I’ve heard that it will be $1,000.00. I’ve heard that it will be substantially less than $1,000. It’s going to crush Kindle! Jobs has been “in discussion with Conde Nast”! It’s going to be an amazing gaming platform! It’s going to have facial recognition capabilities! It will be thin! It will Skype! It will have a massive touch screen keyboard!

Yeah, right. So, as long as we’re adding our wants to this thing, here’s my list:

1. I really do want to read magazines on it. I want to subscribe to them through iTunes. I want some of the pictures to actually be video. I want to flip through pages just like the real thing (like in that Sports Illustrated demo released a number of weeks ago). I want someone to get me the ad specs ASAP. I want built-in measurement of ad effectiveness.
2. I want the battery to last longer than 8 hours.
3. I want AR software (and a webcam) built in.
4. I want expandable memory (SD card slot, please. Just like on my non-iPhone, thank you very much).
5. I want it to be under $500.

If it can do everything above PLUS my list, then I’ll be in line at the Apple store on Thursday morning to get my fourth screen. (I’m a strong believer in redundancy, and actually pretty opposed to total convergence. I’m sorry, but until someone bests Windows phone on Office integration, I’ll happily run around with at least two screens!)

Seriously, though, if this can somehow help the print publishing industry, tell HR that I’m taking a personal day.