During the “Why Publishers Hate Apps: HTML5 & the way forward for Publishing” session, the chief discussed the professionals and cons of HTML5. The session was moderated by Christopher Peri, chief technology officer of VentureBeat.

“HTML5 isn’t always done,” said Jason Pontin, editor in chief of MIT Technology Review.  ‘It’s a piece in progress.”

Current status

Today’s smartphones and tablets provide publishers with the way to mimic a digital representation of past print models and lure back subscribers and advertisers. 

However, although initially touted so that you can build a brand new subscription model to pay for content, publishers soon came to achieve that apps create walled gardens and struggled to get consumers’ attention, given the accessibility of alternative curated sources on the internet. 

Additionally, mobile heavyweights, along with Google and Apple, have placed high demands on single-copy sales that cut into subscription revenues.

Because of this publishers struggled to factor digital copies into their circulation, and creating consistent content across a myriad of devices took effort and time, per the chief.

To try to solve this problem, several publishers have turned to HTML5.

“When Apple release the iPad in April 2010, traditional publishers were already gripped by a kind of collected delusion and convinced themselves that tablets would let them unwind their happy experiences, just like the Internet,” Mr. Pontin said. 

“Smartphones and mobile devices appear to promise a return to simpler days – the best way we used to do publishing,” he said. “The other attraction to doing native apps was that we thought lets revive the print advertising economy. 

“Essentially, publishers lost their heads – everyone rushed to the marketplace to create native apps on iOS and Android platforms.”

Went wrong

According to Mr. Pontin, things went wrong when Apple demanded 30 percent of revenue. 

Furthermore, app development was not as easy an many had thought. 

Currently, publishers are increasingly targeting mobile content. 

“Mobile publishers believe within the importance of generating dual revenue streams from mobile,” Mr. Pontin said. “Publishers are anticipating a growth in mobile advertising revenues. 

“There isn’t any established set of units,” he said. “Yet publishers think there’ll be an explosion of mobile advertising sooner or later.”

Although many publishers are struggling, there are those who got it right.

Take the recent York Times, as an instance. The corporate launched an experimental HTML5 Web app to sidestep Apple’s 30 percent fee. 

Then there’s The Atlantic, which launched an HTML5 iPad app in January 2013. 

Finally, there may be the Financial Times, which Mr. Pontin calls the foremost. 

FT was some of the first that decided to avoid Apple and develop its own Web app. 

“Many publishers are already profitable and the anticipated profitability will keep growing,” Mr. Pontin said.