Tweek needs serious tweaking!

Last few days, my twitter stream was abuzz with stories and links about the new iPad only magazine from the Times Group. Called Tweek, it promised to be a refreshing take on the "new" publishing. From what I have seen so far, I am terribly disappointed with it. Apart from content, a magazine on an emerging platform needs to do just two things right. Social and Platform. Tweek fails on content and on delivery. Here's why.

1. Platform. IMHO they just ported a pdf document to an iOS. The experience on an iOS can be so much better and can be so immersive that I would not want to go back to print at all. Its that big an opportunity! Tweek is a shot at that opportunity but its an half-hearted attempt to be honest. Of course swipes and zooms work but thats not the point of a tablet. Things as simple and basic as rich-media, for example are missing. So, if I am reading an article about travels to Africa, rather than mere pictures that I am used to seeing on a pdf or an e-magazine, on a tablet, I should see a video. And why cant I have audio content? And I should have the ability to find and get more content, that is similar to what I am reading. It should understand my preferences and recommend me things that I could be interested in. It should be an intelligent magazine on an intelligent medium. Tweek just doesn't get it! And if Flipboard can get it right, anyone else trying to do anything with a magazine on the iPad has to get it right. Wonder if there was any research done before the product specs were drawn!
2. Social. The best part of an iPad is that it has tons of "social" elements built into the platform. Tweek fails miserably on this. Of course the magazine has options to send the links to twitter and facebook and email but isn't that around since, what 1947? And is that all there is to it? What about creating interactions around the content? Why cant I see comments and ratings of each article? Why cant I talk about the content like I do on blogs? Why cant we have ratings for each article? Why cant I see the author's bio? Why cant I submit my feedback on it? Etc etc.
3. Content. For the publishing and entertainment business, content is the king. Cliched but true. Tweek's content is nothing to write home about. The articles should be special. They are run of the mill right now. It seems that the edit team quickly pulled out articles from the huge TOI stock library and curated the magazine! If they took a leaf out of Crest, their cousin, the stories would be so much better! In fact, rather than Tweek, TOI should have created an iPad experience for Crest and that would have made me much more happy.

In the end, the idea and the intentions behind Tweek are awesome. But then, the execution is a big let down. I wish I was part of the team that worked on Tweek. I cant promise a good job but I would have got the basics right for sure!

Published first on sandbox.