Will publishing go to all app, no browser, world?

Once you consume content in an app on an iPad, it’s very tough going back to a browser environment.

An app is an eloquent, fast, and eye-pleasing way to read, view video, and share. Not to mention the ergonomics of holding a small iPad having it all over reading off a flat panel on a laptop or sitting at a desk and navigating with a mouse.

I’m confident I’m not the only one who loves this way of consuming content. The below points seem to confirm this and signal huge growth for the delivery of content (text and video) via apps.

• Apple expects to sell 45 million iPads next year. That type of growth has to dwarf the growth of iPhones when they were released 4 or 5 years ago.
• The iPad is now going to be for sale in Target and Walmart. The iPad is quickly breaking out of the personal computer/portable device world into the ubiquitous personal consumption world.
• People who never wanted a computer (not into tech) are buying iPads and loving them. My creative director, Brian Biddle, told me his mother-in-law never used a computer, but loves her iPad. I expect there’s going to be millions following her.
• Bill Pollak, CEO of American Lawyer Media in New York City, shared that he is seeing fewer and fewer people carrying newspapers commuting in and seeing more ereaders and the like. Enough so for him to wonder if the day will soon come when we no longer see newspapers like we do today.
• Microsoft is already talking of iPad wannabe’s. Expect to see PC devices from Dell, HP, and the like that will only expand the app world ala what android has done for apps following the iPhone.
• It’s not the kids who are buying the latest in tech gadgets, it’s the baby boomers in the 45 to 65 age group. Not only do these folks have more money to buy iPads and the like, but publishers and their advertisers will see the prime demographic for delivering content to them in this fashion.
• More and more publishers are launching apps everyday. New publications are even being launched in app version alone.
• Venture Capitalists are heavily funding new ventures ala Flipboard for the consumption of curated (blogs, Twitter, Facebook) content on the iPad. Expect similar funding for non-Apple operating system apps to follow.
• The Financial Times did $1.3 Million in advertising last quarter from its app. Publishers will follow the revenue.
• Amazon sold more books in digital form than in print last Christmas season.
• Amazon’s Kindle is now down to about $150 in price and you have to believe in time more than just books will be read on Kindles.
• Wired Magazine will start delivering its magazine by annual subscription, as opposed to selling one edition at a time, on its app.
• It will only be a matter of time before you buy a monthly or annual subscription to a publication’s app (because it will be so good) and get the content for free.
• Huge cost savings for publishers in paper, print, and distribution.

Sound nuts that publishers will forget browsers for delivery of content? Or that we’ll move from browsers to apps for consuming content? Things change rapidly.

Publishers weren’t clamoring to get their content online 14 years ago. 16 years ago we didn’t have a browser. Most of you didn’t even have a computer 14 years ago either. The idea of consuming huge amounts of content on a computer was a far fetched idea then – and maybe it is again,

My gut tells me we’re moving to apps on iPad like devices to consume content. And that publishers, including LexBlog, will move in this direction for distribution.

What do you think?