An online visitor might spend 2.1 minutes per month at Vanityfair.com and 3.8 minutes per month at GQ.com, according to comScore. On those magazines' iPad apps, though, he or she will 'thumb' through the 'pages' for a leisurely 60 minutes, according to Conde Nast (via the Associated Press).

Digital publishing platform Zinio - which publishes digital editions for Harper's Bazaar and Car and Driver - estimates that iPad readers are spending at least 80 minutes with each issue - compared with half that time reading digital issues on a PC. (via Media Week).

What this means - besides the likelihood that the iPad offers a good potential to goose publishers' advertising revenues - is that some commonly-used ad metrics, such as CPM, are not going to fully capture what readers are doing with the ad in this environment. New ones will have to be developed and then accepted by the industry.

As far as publishers are concerned, that - along with the fact that readers are being conditioned to pay for content online content with the iPad - would be a welcome development. "We're looking to prove engagement in terms of hours, not minutes," said Scott Dadich, creative director for Wired magazine.

Full article ... http://www.marketingvox.com/will-the-ipad-redefine-online-ad-metrics-047...