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"Big media companies are grousing about Apple\u2019s 30% app tax. OnSwipe wants to convince readers\u2014and publishers\u2014there&amp;#8217;s another, better way.\nBy Chadwick Matlin, contributor\n\n  \nExclusive look: OnSwipe -- in the browser -- on an iPad\nLast week, after a year of luring big media organizations onto the iPad, Apple\u00A0sent out a press release, but they would have done just as well sending copies of the old board game Mouse Trap. The release said that publishers, like all app developers, would have to pay what amounts to a 30% tax on every purchase inside their apps &amp;#8212; including for content subscriptions, both print and digital. This, for publishers, was less than ideal.\nMedia companies want to be able send users to their own subscription systems, where they can collect valuable data about them, not to mention their credit card number and the full purchase price of whatever they subscribe to. The Vanity Fair app, for example, would like to send users to vanityfair.com to buy a digital subscription. But for Apple \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAAPL\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t, that\u2019s verboten. The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission think Apple\u2019s strategy may not be entirely legal, but that\u2019s another story, for now.\nMeanwhile! Halfway across the world in Barcelona, Apple\u2019s rivals assembled at the Mobile World Congress. Motorola\u2019s \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMMI\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t Xoom, HTC\u2019s Flyer, LG\u2019s Optimus, and other tablets powered by Google&amp;#8217;s \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tGOOG\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t Android OS were on display. They\u2019re alternatives to the iPad, unproven and largely unknown. But if they\u2014and Android tablets in general\u2014take root the way Android phones have, they will be a huge platform on which publishers can sell their content. Yet Android might not be the panacea publishers are hoping for: Google, too, just cracked down on app that tried to circumvent its in-app purchase mechanism.\n\nAmidst all of this, two guys in New York, Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto, have raised $1 million from firms backed by super angel Ron Conway and ex-Yahooligans&amp;#8217; \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYHOO\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t firm Morado Ventures, and also from VC firm Spark Capital, known for its stakes in Twitter, Tumblr, Boxee and other new media darlings. Their startup, OnSwipe, exists to slay the app-store model when it comes to media. It\u00A0circumvents app stores entirely. A publisher won\u2019t have to tell readers to download a special app and buy a special tablet subscription. They\u2019ll just tell them to go to their website. Because according to Baptiste and Barreto, the future of publishing looks far more like the last decade of publishing than anyone wants to believe.\nIf OnSwipe does its job, media websites will have tablet versions just as they now have mobile versions; rich, beautiful, tablet versions, as good as any app out there. Right now, if you load, say, CNNMoney, on a phone (or click here in your desktop browser), you\u2019ll be brought to a mobile listing of headlines. Images are sparse; layout is nonexistent. It\u2019s a site built for a time when cell networks and phones didn\u2019t have the speed or power to load all those fancy CSS, JavaScript, and HTML5 elements quickly. It\u2019s an aesthetic that follows its form.\nSimilarly, OnSwipe\u2019s tablet website templates are designed for today&amp;#8217;s touch screens\u2014and all the robust capabilities they have, compared to yesterday&amp;#8217;s devices. (They\u2019ll work on touch screen phones too, but tablets are the focus.) At their cluttered desk\u2014MacBook Airs, iPads, and Galaxy Tabs abound\u2014in the back corner of a New York tech incubator workspace, Baptiste and Barreto showed me some early design mockups that look intuitively familiar. You can swipe from page to page and touch different stories on a larger home screen. Images are paramount, video pops off the screen, and commenting and sharing are hidden until the user taps a button. It feels like a website optimized for a tablet. Which is exactly the point.\nMost importantly, a publication\u2019s editorial team won\u2019t have to do extra planning to make content swipeable. All of the existing content on the website will logically slot into the various templates. No matter the tablet. All of this, by the way, will be free.\nWhich is what makes OnSwipe\u2019s vision so alluring. It\u2019s an equal-opportunity platform, preparing for a heterogeneous future where the iPad is just one (major) voice in a larger constituency. \u00A0That&amp;#8217;s a reasonable assumption, considering Android\u2019s market share is already at 22 percent, according to Strategy Analytics. And according to a different analyst, the tablet market will be worth $46 billion by 2014. HP \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHPQ\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t, for what it\u2019s worth, more or less agrees. One of its executive vice presidents says it\u2019ll create a $40 billion tablet market in the next few years.\nBut OnSwipe is nothing without publishers. Baptiste and Barreto promise to launch sometime this spring, with an estimated 20,000 partners. That\u2019s an impressive sounding but easy number to hit because OnSwipe will be integrated with blogging platforms like WordPress and Tumblr. (The whole idea eveolved out of a WordPress plugin the two developed.) For a site to use OnSwipe, it will just need its webmaster plug the service into its code. This is OnSwipe\u2019s greatest advantage: it brings publishers who don\u2019t have enough money to develop an app\u2014let alone multiple apps for several different platforms\u2014into the future.\nOnSwipe also plans to bring publishers into money. Baptiste hates web ads, calling them \u201Cparasites on the content.\u201D So OnSwipe\u2014like so many tech utopians\u2014wants to make ads fun again. With earnestness, Baptiste says, \u201CKids growing up would rip out ads and put them on the wall.\u201D He wants to return to that magical\u2014maybe apocryphal\u2014time, when \u201Cadvertising and editorial would work together.\u201D\nOnSwipe will handle ads without all the whiz-bang of apps like The Daily. They\u2019ll essentially be print advertisements, with maybe a little GPS optimization and social networking built in. (Yes, social networking tools will work in OnSwipe&amp;#8217;s tablet templates, unlike in most current media apps.) The ads will pop up after a certain number of articles are read, a number that each publisher will self-determine. The ads will get into the system either through a publisher\u2019s own ad sales, or\u2014and this is where OnSwipe\u2019s business model emerges\u2014by using the ads OnSwipe sells.\nThe only problem: As of now, it doesn\u2019t have an ad staff. Nor will it launch with one. In a classic startup case of Deferred Monetization Disorder, OnSwipe doesn\u2019t yet know how it\u2019s going to sell all these ads that will be its\u2014and its publishers\u2019\u2014salvation. And yet Baptiste and Barreto aren\u2019t worried. Former execs from AdMob and Quattro, two leading Web advertising technologies, sit on OnSwipe\u2019s board, and OnSwipe plans to lean on them heavily to figure out how to move forward.\nThat OnSwipe doesn\u2019t have an ad team won\u2019t be a problem for big national publishers. Periodicals like the the \n  New York Times\n, \n  Popular Science\n, and \n  Wired\n have their own ads (and their own apps), and they\u2019ll want to keep using them if they sign up. OnSwipe, knowing these are the publishers who will legitimize its service, is more than happy to let them\u2014it will take a smaller revenue cut out of the ads that originate outside its (still-nonexistent) network.\nSigning these companies up, however, will be more difficult. They are the ones, after all, that have the resources to build an app of their own, or a web-enabled tablet template, if that\u2019s the way the marketplace starts to move. Middlemen need not apply. Nevertheless, Baptiste and Barreto say they\u2019ll launch with at least one or two marquee partners, who are under wraps for now.\nBut OnSwipe also thinks it can get by without the big guys. Baptiste and Barreto are convinced that enough mid-sized sites\u2014from the size of, say, The Business Insider on down\u2014need tablet strategies, but don\u2019t want to pay to develop their own. It\u2019s these sites, after all, that have brought us to this moment in the first place. They, along with Craigslist classifieds and a financial crash, have caused the media industry\u2019s existential crisis. OnSwipe wants to make sure the whole ecosystem\u2014itself included\u2014exists just a little bit longer.\nDisclosure: The author served as a professional reference for a prospective OnSwipe employee, before reporting or researching this article.\nMore from Fortune:\n\nHow Vimeo became hipster YouTube\nFlipboard: Publishing Friend or Foe?\nAngry Birds voted &amp;#8220;best app ever&amp;#8221;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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