When you just look back

After getting an iPad, I’ve been trying out various news browsing applications. The iPhone is great in a sense that it could connect to the Internet almost at any places (where the mobile phone data signal can reach). But iPad can show you much more information at glance.

I’ve tried one application available in Japanese, and few applications in English. The best one, I thought, was the one from Financial Times. It can download the contents while you’re online and read it offline (yes, you could do the same with the one from BBC, but the data seems to be easily flushed on this one). Because my iPad does not have 3G access, offline-reading capability was one of the most important features I needed.

The sad thing was, of course, that there is a solid limit to read the articles under Financial Times (several articles in 30 days, if I remember this correctly). I’ve reached this limit in first few hours of using this application.

Today, after using other news applications, I looked at the subscription price list of Financial Times again. It was about 250 EUR per year, which didn’t actually sound that bad, if you’re to think about the price you’d pay for a normal newspaper (at least in Japan). After few minutes, I completed the transaction for subscription.

So what did I pay my money for actually? It’s probably not the news contents themselves; you could find more or less the similar content somewhere on the web or other news applications (such as the one from BBC or Tagesschau videocast).

It’s the convenience to access to the information I’m paying my money for. Eventually, you could replace the word “convenience” with “time”. It takes extra effort, if you’d like to read the similar content by using another application or method (e.g., accessing the online information using non-iPad device or being required to stay in IP-reachable area via WiFi to access to online content using iPad). I actually do not think I paid for the content under Financial Times; it’s rather that I paid for the quality and convenience of that iPad application.

An opposite of this FT.app is the TED+SUB application, with which you’re able to watch the TED talks with subtitles. While I think it’s good to see TED talks with subtitles (as a translator), I failed to find the point of this application (perhaps this is because I’m not using 3G-iPad). What would be so great about being able to see the subtitled talks only in WiFi zone, while you can carry other (non-subtitled) TED talks via Podcast subscription?

On the other side of this topic, it’s always good to ask yourself what you’re actually selling (and to whom) as a service provider¹. It is the value that people pay their money for. The value can take various forms : convenience, special function of product/service, making him-/herself feel great, etc.

I’m curious how happy I’d feel about my decision to subscribe at the end of this year.

1. Although I’m currently a full-time employee, I consider myself to be a service provider as well, in a sense I’m selling the products to the company I’m working for by using my skill set. [↩]