The Sunday Times (UK) reported at the weekend (Registration Required — this is Rupert Murdoch’s new PAID newspaper site) that the sheer number of new internet-connected devices, such as smartphones and tablets, has sparked a desperate need for more infrastructure to support all this flood of data. The proliferation of high-definition video and the launch of the iPad mean that the volume of data traffic will go on soaring.

It might not feel like it, but the boom is still in its infancy. “Less than 1% of all video is watched online,” said Tom Leighton, co-founder of Akamai, whose technology helps clients such as Microsoft and Amazon dodge the traffic jams on the data highways. “In the coming years you are looking at a factor of 1,000 increase and a system that is already under stress.”

Tags: boom, infrastructure, iPad, online video, shortages, smartphones, tablets

While some newspapers globally are agonising over the killing fields of the internet and whether paywalls can solve the problem of fiscal death by click, others have joined magazines in a whole new approach to the digital dilemma: add online readers into your total circulation base and charge advertisers for all of them.

America’s Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has just modified its definition of a digital magazine in the U.S. and Canada to accommodate new reading devices such as the Apple iPad.

The new standards state that a replica digital edition must include a print edition’s full editorial content and advertising, but it no longer needs to be presented in a layout identical to the print version. Replica digital editions will continue to be included in a magazine’s circulation guarantee, or rate base.

Predictably, Wired magazine was the first publication to seek review of its iPad version, which will qualify as a digital replica edition under the bureau’s new guidelines. GQ has offered an ABC approved replica app for the iPhone and iPod Touch since December 2009.

Last week the ABC board gave its initial approval to the creation of new U.S. reports that better reflect a publication’s total audience across a range of products. As a result, publishers may begin reporting such items as:

• E-reader distribution averages
• Mobile app purchases
• Total paid and verified circulation emanating from multiple products, including branded print editions associated with the flagship publications.
• A new “Publishing Plan” executive summary box on the first page, noting frequency, delivery platforms, and distribution methods across a publisher’s various print and electronic editions.
• Continued use of Audience-FAX, the 2007 initiative that allows U.S. publications to report print and online readership figures, as well as Web site and audience data from comScore, Nielsen Online, Omniture, or other sources audited by ABC Interactive.

Tags: ABC, audit, circulation, digital devices, iPad, Magazines, newspapers

From the Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. is [reportedly] in discussions with television networks to lower the price of downloaded TV shows when the company begins selling its new iPad tablet computer.

Apple has already been testing a price of 99 cents—half the price of standard-definition TV episodes—for certain shows on its iTunes service and [again, reportedly] wants to finalize a deal to offer that price more broadly along with the iPad, which is expected to go on sale in late March.

All that speculation makes for a great story, probably with at least a grain of truth. And selective leaking might well put more pressure on TV programme producers to do a deal.

But the underlying subtext is even more interesting — and potentially game-changing. When the iPod came out, it (more than any other device) turned music listening from a shared experience to a predominantly single-user moment. Whatever your musical taste, you were no longer obliged to negotiate with other members of your household before firing up the stereo. You could dance to the beat of a different drummer in the privacy of your own earbuds.

Now the iPad threatens to unleash the same single-user phenomenon with television. YouTube already brought us part of the way — the iPad will complete the circuit with quality television available in a one-person device. Content comes in through WiFi or Mobile, and exits through one pair of eyes.

As marketers, are we ready for a new generation of massively-multi-set households?

Tags: iPad, television