There’s a lot of discussion today about iPad magazine sales plummeting, based on a report from WWD Media:

Remember when Wired’s debut issue for the iPad sold more than 100,000 times in June? It looks like it will be a while before that type of performance is seen again. Digital sales dropped toward the end of 2010 for all the magazines that make those figures available to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

After Wired’s enormous debut month, the magazine averaged 31,000 digital sales between July and September, but even that fell in October and November, with sales coming in at 22,000 and 23,000, respectively. (For comparison, the magazine sold 130,000 total print editions for October and November.)

Remember that this is Wired – other iPad magazines are selling in the thousands.

Mashable offers 4 reasons for the decline:

1. Price: It’s difficult to persuade current subscribers to pay for individual issues when they’re already receiving the same content at a fifth of the price in print.
2. Lack of Exposure: It’s not easy to browse for magazines in the App Store, which are stowed among hundreds of thousands of other apps.
3. Failure to Innovate: Part of the reason the first iPad editions of magazines sold so well is because they delivered truly novel experiences for the device, from animated covers to interactive graphics. The problem is that the experiences haven’t evolved since then.
4. Large download size: Magazine apps need to slim down. Wired’s first issue was half a gigabyte, or nearly one-thirtieth of the smallest iPad’s 16 GB storage capacity; the first issue of The New Yorker, a weekly, came in at 173 MB.

Mashable and others are missing the point, though.

The first generation of iPad magazines are old media dressed in new media clothing. If this is the future of magazines, magazines are doomed.

The current generation of iPad magazines is fat, out of date, anti-social and harder to use than the Web. They don’t deserve to sell.

iPad magazines have to answer the question we raised when the Wired magazine was introduced:

If they want this to be around in a year, they need to figure out what the real benefits of a magazine app are.

The one big advantage a magazine app offers is fast browsing, even when disconnected. A great iPad magazine app would give you the interactivity and timeliness of the Web, but would also degrade gracefully when you were disconnected.

Do you think the current generation of iPad magazines has a future? Or will new media apps like Flipboard drink their milkshake?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vimeo has introduced a new section on their site, designed to help you make better Internet video, Vimeo Video School:

We realized that one of the best ways we could nurture the incredible range of creativity on the site would be to build a system that easily allows members of all skill levels to learn more about making videos and expand their knowledge base. We’re covering everyone, from people picking up a video camera for the first time, to seasoned pros that need info on the newest technology.

Vimeo has three internet video production tutorial series:

• Video 101 -”We hope these 101 videos will answer a lot of first time questions and demystify the process of making videos. They’re fun, so check them out and share them with your friends.”
• DSLR Basics with Philip Bloom - Philip Bloom and Andrea Allen have created a helpful series on DSLR basics.
• Vimeo Lessons - tutorial posts that incorporate instructional videos Vimeo members have created.

Vimeo Video School now offers over 1,000 tutorials, so this is a great resource if you are looking for information creating online video.  An example is embedded above.