The idea of brands telling stories is a hot topic right now. Coca-Cola is all about "liquid and linked" content, Heineken has had some amazing success with its global content strategy and the theme at this year's Festival of Media is based on the "science of storytelling".

Popular wisdom suggests that the future of brand content lies in video, and video is undoubtedly an exciting and powerful medium, but the popularity of e-readers and tablets has revitalised the written word, albeit in digital form.

In our experience, the tablet edition of Wired is the standard by which other digital magazines should be judged. The technical team at Condé Nast has created a superb platform for brands. Full page ads still appear in the ‘book’, but they are now rich with content and limited only by the imagination of the advertiser.

The whole content paywall debate still continues; but users are culturally adapting to the idea of paid-for content and its value over the free general clutter that is the bulk of the internet, as demonstrated by this infographic: