Cerebra

Mario Garcia Jnr. of Garcia Interactive recently shared his views on Apple's iPad. Whilst he, like many technology pundits felt that the iPad was a little underwhelming (unlike stephen fry) , the primary thrust of his opinion on the subject, and the cause for his excitement was not on the iPad's ability to change the way we interact with technology but rather the way we interact with news, and news media.

Garcia suggests that the "the iPad is a gateway. An opportunity for the newspapers to try something new and different. The product can only be a game changer if the newspapers get in the game themselves. And getting in the game doesn’t mean getting a team to create a “cool” way to flip pages on the screen and getting readers to pay for a “different reading experience.” Or trying to convince advertisers that their ads will display as colorful and vibrant on the iPad as they do in print."

Instead of merely reconfiguring the way in which news is read, Garcia argues that the next generation of news giant will create immersive, rich media applications for the iPad which have the capacity to entertain whilst inform. Garcia suggests, much to the delight no doubt of many news organisations; 'what newspapers have going for them is their brand, their archives of data and their resources." It's merely then a matter of "how can they leverage that to create apps that users need and that they can put a premium on?"