The earliest iPad commentary was positive, but cautiously so as a lot of us wondered what this technology could be used for. Tablet PCs were immensely useful, but the iPad wasn’t a full blown computer. It was an amalgam of technology and entertainment. A few months later, we can safely say that the experiment worked for Apple.

The iPad had no trouble getting content to drive its speedy expansion of this new market. Developers followed where consumers led and the result is an App and content ecosystem on which countless new ideas are being presented seemingly every day. Android, despite just entering the tablet market recently, is already on the same track and soon RIM will follow.

But, what about the actual content we consume – how does its presence affect the viability of the platform and how does the platform affect the viability of the content? Newspapers for example are still struggling with the best way to present their content to the public. Recent announcements of subscription rates for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are expected, but no one knows if they will be successful or not.

The digital only “Daily” for the iPad looks great, but it doesn’t have nearly as much content as a daily newspaper and it has yet to take off like some expected. Magazines are struggling as well – trying to determine how best to produce and price their content. Some magazines like Wired offer an interactive issue with tons of interesting features, but the file is huge and the cost is high. Until recently, subscription models for tablet users didn’t exist and even now they are not on par with print subscriptions, which are very low cost.

What Can They Do?

So, what do content developers need to do to be successful on a platform that is redefining their medium? While print subscriptions are still the major source of revenue for most magazine and newspaper publishers, revenues are declining amid arguments over original vs. syndication journalism and pay-to-read content.

No one can decide if the old or new version of media is best and how to package it and deliver it to the consumer. And through it all, the tablet platform is playing a central role in the argument. After all, most people don’t read magazines or newspapers on their PC. And as more people buy tablets and smart phones, they have access to content on the go – the perfect opportunity for publishers to digitize and rebound from the downturn of the last 10 years.

Will it work? Will digital publishing allow content producers to succeed again? Or do they need to develop a new model, like software developers are doing in App stores? Giant products with hundreds of features and salaried workers are expensive to produce and hard to sell. Smaller, dynamic pieces in a la carte format are not only easier to produce – they are easier to sell.

It’s impossible to know which direction the market will go in the next few years, but changes are definitely coming and they are coming soon.

There is a lot of news to talk about this week, though on many sites you must sort through page after page of notes on the Verizon iPhone. For those not in the United States, the battle between iPhone users and AT&T isn’t that big of a deal, though it is interesting from the standpoint of market share since, as the largest consumer base for smartphones in the world, when something changes in the US it has resounding effects around the world.

That said, I’m intrigued by the slew of recent release dates, rumours and new content additions that have appeared on the radar of late. To start with, no one can quite figure out when the new wave of tablets will arrive this spring. An errant Best Buy Facebook Page accidentally said that the Xoom would be available on February 24 in the US. While this hasn’t been confirmed or denied, it seems more and more likely considering how long Motorola’s been sitting on this device.

Of course, since Honeycomb officially debuted three days ago, the floodgates are starting to slide further open as more people prepare to launch their first Android 3.0 devices. Our first official look at the OS was nice – the same slick interface we’ve come to know and love from Android but optimized for a bigger screen.

At the same time, news is swirling around the perceived announcement of an iPad 2. No one really knows when Apple will officially announce it, but Darrell Etherington at GigaOm doesn’t think it will be in the next week (at the 4.3 unveiling), if only because it’s too far from the likely launch date and Apple needs to be more careful with their announcements now that they have real competitors. To me, if the Xoom really does hit soon, I see Apple laying out their plans shortly afterwards to cut off the likely sales of Motorola’s new device, but it remains to be seen if that will happen. The price point for the Xoom will have an impact as well.

In other news, The Daily was officially announced this week and along with it a handful of competitors like New York Times’ News.me. I’m interested to see if this surge to provide an iPad newspaper will cross over to other tablets. It’s obvious that the news media and print industry are playing catch up right now, but at some point, they have to start to thinking ahead – whether for new devices or their admittedly weak subscription plans.

I suppose the message from this week is that we’re in a bit of a limbo phase. While there are some new devices hitting the market (the Dell Streak 7 arrived with a slightly disappointing screen and the first Asus Eee tablet with Windows is finally available), the big boys are still on hold – soon enough though we’ll get our hands on the Playbook, Xoom and iPad 2 and can start really arguing over which is best for 2011.