Last week, Rolling Stone Magazine, the venerable print publication devoted to music, politics, and popular culture, launched an iPad app. It was a long time coming, but they chose to take their time and tread carefully, rather than rushing into mobile. Even if you're not a publication, you could learn some valuable lessons from the process Rolling Stone went through.
Learn from the mistakes of others. Many companies today are trying to make the move to mobile, but it's hard to know when the time is right. Rolling Stone Publisher Jann Wenner, a dyed-in-the wool old school print publisher, is not terribly impressed with the new medium, as he made crystal clear in a March, 2011 interview in Ad Age in which he called the tablet business "a small additive, not a new business" and predicted it could be decades before it was significant. Sticking firmly to his print roots, Wenner criticized publishers who made a rush to the iPad: "So I think that they're prematurely rushing and showing little confidence and faith in what they've really got, their real asset, which is the magazine itself, which is still a great commodity."
Whether you agree with him or not, there is something to be said for moving slowly and watching how the platform develops, rather than rushing in before it has time to mature.
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Rolling Stone thinks they timed it right. Rolling Stone Design Director Joseph Hutchinson, who spearheaded the design and delivery of the new iPad app, pointed out that many who rushed to the iPad and chose to dazzle readers with expensive effects have since cut back. By sitting back and waiting, Rolling Stone was able to learn from the industry.
Test and prototype. The process really began when Rolling Stone released a special Beatles app in fall 2010. Hutchinson said they learned a lot from that process, but it wasn't until 2012 that they began looking at tools to deliver a full-fledged iPad version of the magazine.
They went with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. It was a natural fit since Rolling Stone already publishes the magazine on Adobe's platform -- the staff was already comfortable using Adobe tools and didn't need to learn totallly new technology, and the new digital publishing tasks could be integrated into their existing workflows pretty easily.
Last summer, Hutchison assembled a team with another designer and a freelancer, and over the next several months they built a prototype in their spare time while they did their regular jobs putting together the print magazine.
