Computers, Smartphones, Tablets: Digital Changes at a Medical Journal
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Abstract
For electronic access to authoritative medical information, health professionals now have three major options: via conventional computer, via smartphone, or via tablet computers. The baseline use of Web site of the New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM.org] is for 3 million visits per month. The large majority of users are physicians, medical trainees, or medical students. Over the past two years an NEJM This Week app has been available, and it gives users free access to all content for just the current week. On the NEJM.org Web site access to much of the content requires a subscription, with only selected articles and multimedia being made freely available. In 2012 an app for the iPad was released that requires either log-in with an individual paid subscription or purchase of individual issues. Users can then download each week’s entire issue plus the associated audio, video, note-taking, share, and search features. We have been monitoring use patterns as these new access options become available.
Over the first four months the NEJM iPad Edition app has had 101,388 downloads. An average of 17,027 readers per week are using the app, with 49,000 article views per week. A total of 2,218 users have taken the new option for a monthly NEJM subscription purchased through iTunes. To date, no decline has been seen in the rate of new subscriptions directly from NEJM via traditional routes. Despite the uptake of the iPad app, traffic to NEJM.org from iPads and other tablet computers continues to increase, and is now at 160,000 visits per month. Over the past year, traffic to the Web site from tablet computers has nearly tripled. Traffic to NEJM.org via mobile phone has nearly doubled, growing to 240,000 visits per month. On the NEJM.org site, traffic from mobile phones and from tablet computers together constitutes only about 10 percent of total traffic, and the traffic from conventional desktop/laptop computers remains at 3 million visits per month. Over the past two years, the NEJM This Week iPhone app has had 443,665 downloads, although the number of users per week averages only 18,793.
The emerging technologies around smartphones and tablet computers are challenging traditional, peer-review journals to adapt and re-invent for medical information delivery in the digital age. With over 35 million tablet computers now in use, the iPad and its competitors offer opportunities for medical publishers to expand, refine, and innovate far beyond what appears on paper or even on Web. The experience to date at this medical journal shows patterns of information seeking that are increasingly mobile, multi-platform, and hybrid. Rather than shifting to new options, users are adopting new devices, platforms, and apps in a pattern that is additive
Over the first four months the NEJM iPad Edition app has had 101,388 downloads. An average of 17,027 readers per week are using the app, with 49,000 article views per week. A total of 2,218 users have taken the new option for a monthly NEJM subscription purchased through iTunes. To date, no decline has been seen in the rate of new subscriptions directly from NEJM via traditional routes. Despite the uptake of the iPad app, traffic to NEJM.org from iPads and other tablet computers continues to increase, and is now at 160,000 visits per month. Over the past year, traffic to the Web site from tablet computers has nearly tripled. Traffic to NEJM.org via mobile phone has nearly doubled, growing to 240,000 visits per month. On the NEJM.org site, traffic from mobile phones and from tablet computers together constitutes only about 10 percent of total traffic, and the traffic from conventional desktop/laptop computers remains at 3 million visits per month. Over the past two years, the NEJM This Week iPhone app has had 443,665 downloads, although the number of users per week averages only 18,793.
The emerging technologies around smartphones and tablet computers are challenging traditional, peer-review journals to adapt and re-invent for medical information delivery in the digital age. With over 35 million tablet computers now in use, the iPad and its competitors offer opportunities for medical publishers to expand, refine, and innovate far beyond what appears on paper or even on Web. The experience to date at this medical journal shows patterns of information seeking that are increasingly mobile, multi-platform, and hybrid. Rather than shifting to new options, users are adopting new devices, platforms, and apps in a pattern that is additive
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