This week I had the opportunity to attend the Marketing Live Show show at London’s Olympia.

It’s a massive, industry-wide event with dedicated areas for four strands of marketing: online, data, insight and in-store.

But across the show, the buzz was about just one thing: the iPad.

Since its UK launch last month, the much-heralded device has sold a massive 200,000 units and sparked debate in every section of the media.

In publishing, of course, we’ve been waiting for the iPad’s arrival for some time. The optimists among us see it as ‘the Jesus tablet’ that will keep publishing alive in the digital age. Others are more sceptical of its impact.

Either way, I was curious to hear what the rest of the industry were saying.

One interesting viewpoint was presented by David Rowan, the editor Wired Magazine.

Rowan talked about his publication’s journey into the word of digital publishing. Wired USA, its sister title, has already released an online magazine application for the iPad, which Rowan describes it as ‘Wired and some,’ due to its extra interactive features.

In its first month, the app sold more than 97,000 copies - considerably more than the monthly readership of print edition. It’s an easily accessible and uber modern version of the product – and people are more than prepared to pay for the service and convenience it offers.

The iPad, Rowan acknowledges, is set to revolutionise the way people access and enjoy media. He explains it is a ‘consume’ rather than a ‘create’ product, positioned, through its advertising campaign, as fun and easy to use.

As the future turns digital, so must publishing. And the ‘entertainment only’ laws of the iPad mean it’s much better suited as a vehicle for editorial content than anything we’ve seen before.

The iPad and the broader digital content arena present challenges and opportunities that we at Seven46 are eager to embrace.

Watch this space for our first flash magazine. In the words of the iPad - ‘it’s already a revolution, and it’s only just begun!’