Seeing Things in High Resolution (Part 2)

The 123rd Dentsu Design Talk, held at Dentsu Inc. Hall on September 22, featured a dialogue between Takafumi Horie, founder of SNS, and Kensuke Yamamoto of Sumally. The theme was "Seeing Things in High Resolution." What are the perspectives of these two individuals developing services at the forefront of society? Here is the second part. ( Previous part here )

What will happen to magazine digitization? The future of old media

Horie: I'm currently an advisor for the curated magazine "Antena." Magazine sales continue to decline. This means high-end brands lose advertising outlets. I want Antena to become that platform for their ads. We've now reached several million downloads, and thankfully, advertising placements from national clients are surging. A trend is emerging: magazine-like media, optimized for smartphones, amassing downloads, and growing as a media platform. People often try to replicate the UI of print magazines for digital editions, but that's a mistake. It must be fast and smooth to view on smartphones, and the very way articles are created needs to be transformed to be smartphone-specific.

Yamamoto: I agree completely about digitizing magazines, but how do you see television as a medium? I think TV could eventually deliver personalized content too.

Horie: That might be tough. TV excels at mass advertising to build awareness for new services, but its targeting has limits. It'd be great if you could target ads only to men earning over 10 million yen a year, but that's difficult. The best approach probably remains getting companies launching new products to do massive ad buys. Digital magazine conversion has been a major failure so far. If you cling to traditional magazine production, you'll steadily lose readers. Articles from existing magazines are simply too wordy for smartphones. Only the most dedicated readers will read 1,200 characters per page. Everyone skims headlines and reads only what interests them. Increasing visuals and cutting text to the absolute minimum will become a crucial skill. Magazine editors might frown at this, but as a former editor, what do you think?

Yamamoto: I personally read news that way too. But at the same time, I find it regrettable that only gossip-oriented topics get picked up. By narrowing the category, like "NewsPicks" which specializes in economic information, we might avoid that situation. Or perhaps strengthening personalization could also help avoid a bias toward gossip. Though personalization might be difficult for news requiring immediacy.

Horie: Speaking of news apps, Gunosy does personalization well. My Gunosy feed is pretty amazing (laughs). It delivers super niche news I want. I use different news apps; for checking world gossip, LINE NEWS alone is enough. The newspaper format is outdated. The categorization into politics, economy, international, culture, and society sections probably originated when newspapers were created, back when news was scarce. LINE NEWS's categories starting with entertainment are what I consider the categories for today. If you only look online, you might become less familiar with social issues news, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Because there are so many social issues stories where you think, "Do we really need that much coverage of this incident? Is this really national news?" When you see that kind of reporting, it feels like the social issues reporters are just writing articles to do their jobs.

Output is crucial for information—writing reveals the essence.

Yamamoto: What makes news comfortable for me is when related information I've encountered appears appropriately. At Sumally, we want to pursue that precision with information related to "things."

Horie: I really wish Amazon would do this too. I love manga and buy it often, but I frequently lose track of which volumes I own. About one in five times, I end up buying the same volume twice. Why doesn't Amazon manage purchase histories better?

Yamamoto: Maybe they sell products but don't really think of themselves as selling information. Do you read the comic app "Weekly D Morning"? I think that app is really well done.

Horie: But you can't read "Vagabond" on it, right? I hear Inoue Takehiko says he wants people to read his manga on paper. So the other day, I thought about how to convince him. Magazines warp when you flip pages, distorting the art, right? Does Inoue-san factor that distortion into his drawing? Probably not. So, what about saying, "Tablets don't warp, so readers get the original artwork. Isn't that closer to the real thing?"

Yamamoto: (Laughs). He might have his principles, but I think not just manga artists, but novelists too—especially those who sell large print runs—should embrace digitization sooner.

Horie: The longer someone's been active, like Yasushi Akimoto, the more flexible they actually are. Mastering new tools is important. But there are issues too. Time disappears. Interesting information pours out like water. Now, all my waiting time is spent gathering information. I enjoy reading it because I love it, but maybe I need to organize things a bit.

Yamamoto: I'm in a similar situation, but lately I've been consciously making an effort to look at things that have been around for a long time. It's interesting to explore, alongside new things, what it is that continues to be accepted over time.

Horie: For me, I'm completely maxed out on new things already. So, let me say one important thing: output is crucial for information. Share it on Twitter with comments, or when you want to dig deeper, write a substantial piece on a blog or newsletter. That deepens your understanding. Repeating this process eventually reveals the essence of things. Mind you, my input volume is insane. I treat every day as a "run" (laughs). Right now, I'm actually building a content management tool for output. There wasn't anything like a blog you could edit quickly from your phone, so I decided to make it myself. Blog systems haven't changed in ten years. Shocking, right? Choosing photos from your camera roll? Personal assistants will handle that automatically, freeing humans to focus solely on the core aspects of thinking. That era is coming within the next two or three years.

You can also read the interview here on AdTie!

Planning & Production: Dentsu Inc. Human Resources Bureau, Aki Kanahara