Conde Nast Taps Brakes on Churning Out iPad Editions for All Its Magazines

Ad age reporting:
Conde Nast is tapping the brakes on its drive to deliver iPad editions of all its magazines, according to company employees, acknowledging that conditions aren't quite right yet to deliver the ideal app editions at the kind of scale that advertisers want. If publishers want to introduce new iPad editions right now, Conde wants them to be sure they're justified.
That hardly means Conde is done with the iPad. It remains committed to creating iPad editions for its titles, with an undisclosed one planned to arrive in May. And it has created many other kinds of iPad apps tied to its brands that don't attempt to deliver an entire print issue's experience.
But Conde Nast enthusiastically planned for the iPad even before the device was out, telling employees in February 2010 that it would introduce iPad editions of Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour. Since then Golf Digest, Self and Allure have followed.
Now, however, publishers and executives feel a lot less reason to add more titles without a particularly compelling business case.
"It's a shift," one Conde publisher said. "The official stance was we're going to get all our magazines on the iPad because this is going to be such an important stream. The new change is maybe we can slow it down. In my opinion it makes Conde look smart because we have the ambition, but we're not rushing."
"They're not all doing all that well, so why rush to get them all on there?" the publisher added.
...Ad buyers point out that iPad editions across the publishing industry still lack both the scale that marketers want and the metrics to help gauge ad effectiveness. "As this platform is still in its infancy, it's important that we marketers and sellers continue to explore, experiment and innovate in delivering unique experiences to consumers from a content and creative perspective," said Robin Steinberg, exec VP-director of publisher investment and activation at MediaVest USA. "In addition, it's critical we are able to evaluate and measure these opportunities in order to create business models demonstrating best values."
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