Content Everywhere and Anywhere

There is so much talk about video content being accessible everywhere and anywhere. And for the consumer, it is all about paying once for that content. Cable companies like to talk about bundling, triple play packages of voice, data, and video and discounting for buying these bundles of services. The same holds true outside of cable.

People Magazine is bundling the price of online and subscription. "The iPad application for People will be free to readers who subscribe to the magazine, the first step toward what Time Inc., the world’s largest magazine publisher, hopes is a model for the bundling of print and digital sales for all its publications." Not a new concept as the Wall Street Journal also packages a print and digital subscription this way, but one that needs more active marketing to push the value back to the consumer. Until print goes away entirely, the bundle is a good way to move consumers into paying for digital subscriptions. At some point, they can nix the print and perhaps the package can increase the number of digital downloads for the family in exchange for not sending out the print issue. Less production and mail costs, hopefully more net income.

And it keeps pushing value back to Apple and the iPad. A tablet may be a smaller computer but it needs software and content to make it a must-have product. The more content Apple secures for the iPad, the more valuable a device it becomes and more difficult it becomes to compete with.