Tablets, tablets everywhere

It's a tablet explosion! 30+ devices are supposed to hit the market this year, 30! I didn't know there were even 30 tech developers capable of building one. What does that mean, well it means a couple things but mainly it means over-saturation and consumer confusion. While watching the Grammy's last night I saw the HP execution bumpers that introduced what was "coming up" before heading to commercial. I didn't see the HP logo until the 3rd time through, though. All I saw was an iPad. That's what tablets look like when you see them, they look like the first and most popular version of what it represents.

Grammy's side note: Cee-Lo is amazing, but I think people love him because he just has so much fun on stage. That's what live entertainment is all about. Congratulations are also in order for Arcade Fire! To think I knew you back when you were The Arcade Fire, just two years ago. The Suburbs is a great album though, and I love seeing indie musicians make it big - even if it means the ticket prices go up.

How are consumers making decisions on tablets, that's what we want to ask ourselves as advertisers? Is it possible to realize any scale with just one tablet, if it's not the iPad? Will a dominant operating system help deliver scale, and is Android that operating system? Many questions to ponder as we watch these 30 tablets come across our TV and Digital screens in the coming months.

For me, I'd like to know how publishers and mainly the newspaper and magazine publishers plan to build long-term strategies. I think we've seen enough to know that the fragmentation that existed in magazines, has been replaced by even more fragmentation online. There really isn't enough room for all the magazine publishers to all of a sudden become digital or mobile destination and also deliver scalable audiences.

So, something has to give and we will learn a great deal over the next 3 months about what model consumers are going to support. Whether it be a year long subscription, a pay per issue or a completely ad-supported free to consumers model.

Remember when the iPad came out and everyone was considering what it replaces? Is it a bigger iPhone, or does it take the place of your laptop? Is this something that consumers need or have demanded? I'm pretty sure the consensus was that it wasn't, yet now we have 30 technology developers following Apple into the market.

My Take: We will see a major shakeout and merging (purchasing) across the publisher community. In the end, we will see the larger publishers lean upon the tried and true ad-supported model. There is room for a subscription model as well, but will so many other options for news and entertainment, it will be tough to scale such an option against a mass audience.