I asked Gordon Crovitz, co-founder of Journalism Online and former Wall St. Journal publisher (who helped lead the charge there to find the model to charge for their content online) what he thought of the NY Times' announced move to go to a "metered" model to charge for access to their website. Simply put, users who access the paper a lot would pay after a certain number of views (per day/week/month or other is not yet specified.), as of 2011.
Here are Crovitz' thoughts:
"The metered model is a smart application of the freemium strategy. Publishers can keep free access for their less frequent readers online while seeking a reasonable payment for full access from their most engaged readers, who value the brand and content the most. The metered model is the most popular among the publishers planning to launch using the Journalsim Online e-commerce platform."
Journalism Online, which I wrote about for Poynter's e-Media Tidbits among other places, is developing technology and working with publishers to help them find the optimum mixes online of subscription, advertising, a-la-carte and other pricing and revenue models for their content.
Showing posts with label newspapers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newspapers. Show all posts
The Need to Generate One's Own Traffic
Today’s NYTimes story by former colleague Brian Stelter on the dismissal of WashPost columnist Dan Froomkin over, at least in part, the decline in traffic to his Web column got me thinking: Are we now in an era when newspaper columnists and maybe even regular journalists will be subjected to the same need to self-promote as book authors have labored under for years?
Book authors have long lamented that the only way to get a publisher to promote a book was if their name was already big enough that the promotion was a sure thing. It’s like the old joke about bank loans: The only way to get one is to prove you don’t need it. In effect, authors are forced to use their slim advances and boundless energy to try to push a book over the top, see if they can jack up sales, get enough interest and notice to get that second deal on better terms, and whatever other benefits the book may reap (speaking and consulting gigs, sales of T-shirts and coffee mugs...). The new tools authors have to promote -- free or cheap social media feeds, email blasts, Web tools and more -- gives them the ability to do it better than ever.
But newspaper columnists have not been used to the need for such self-promotion. Would Froomkin’s fate have been different, for example, had he garnered a bigger Twitter and Facebook followings (4,621 and 1,880 as of this moment), so that he could have driven more traffic to his WashPost columns online?
This logic is even trickling up to Hollywood stars. By pushing hard to break the million-follower level on Twitter, Ashton Kutcher surely has given himself some buffer against the whims of a Hollywood executive who might be able to let him go on allegations of a lack of fan base or similar excuse. In a system when the stars, not the studios and not even their agents, can “own” their public, they’re empowered -- but they also have to do the work to cultivate that following.
Book authors have long lamented that the only way to get a publisher to promote a book was if their name was already big enough that the promotion was a sure thing. It’s like the old joke about bank loans: The only way to get one is to prove you don’t need it. In effect, authors are forced to use their slim advances and boundless energy to try to push a book over the top, see if they can jack up sales, get enough interest and notice to get that second deal on better terms, and whatever other benefits the book may reap (speaking and consulting gigs, sales of T-shirts and coffee mugs...). The new tools authors have to promote -- free or cheap social media feeds, email blasts, Web tools and more -- gives them the ability to do it better than ever.
But newspaper columnists have not been used to the need for such self-promotion. Would Froomkin’s fate have been different, for example, had he garnered a bigger Twitter and Facebook followings (4,621 and 1,880 as of this moment), so that he could have driven more traffic to his WashPost columns online?
This logic is even trickling up to Hollywood stars. By pushing hard to break the million-follower level on Twitter, Ashton Kutcher surely has given himself some buffer against the whims of a Hollywood executive who might be able to let him go on allegations of a lack of fan base or similar excuse. In a system when the stars, not the studios and not even their agents, can “own” their public, they’re empowered -- but they also have to do the work to cultivate that following.
To Save Newspapers, Don't Restrict Others
Nathan Richardson, CEO of ContentNext, writes that newspapers, with old thinking, could learn something from Silicon Valley, and their attitude of sharing both ideas and information. Well written, and a little inside peak at when he was at the Wall Street Journal. But one part of it gave me pause:
Nate,
Finally had a chance to read and consider this piece. Nicely written and reasoned, and even has some smiles. One portion gives me pause:
“Portals should agree to show search results only for the original sources of news content, as opposed to outlets that have repurposed that content.”
That kind of restrictive thinking seems fair at first glance -- after all, shouldn’t the one creating the content be the one who reaps the benefit? -- but it goes against the grain of the way it’s been done not just for the past 10 years of Web journalism, but for the past 40-50 years, with broadcasters and others picking up information, and, if fairly, attributing it to the original source.
Today’s model calls more for incentive than restriction. Perhaps we could allow for some kind of prioritization in the search algorithm for the originator of the content. And some sort of additional revenue to the creator, where there is a shared revenue scheme.
But by highlighting only the creator (which will often mean the large player), Google and the other search engines would be alienating a significant chunk of their constituency, favoring one business over another, and potentially violating tenets of free speech. For example, commentary on a piece of journalism or even pickup of a small portion of it might be fair use, and thus deserve to the be linked to from the search -- and something the searcher would want to see. If the algorithm excludes those results, because they weren’t from the originator of the content, it might be a disservice all around. (Not to mention that the original’s SEO ranking would suffer because of fewer links and accesses to it.)
A final thought: Where would PaidContent be had the system of excluding repurposed content been in place?
Newspaper Industry Solutions: Everybody Has One
It seems like everybody’s weighing in now on newspaper revenue models: Here’s a pitch to save The Scotsman, by merging with its Scottish competitor; here’s New York Times executive editor Bill Keller (via PaidContent) on what he’s thinking about charging for subscriptions. Here’s Silicon Alley Insider with an analysis that actually breaks the numbers down. And here’s Allison Fine, picking me and others up, rebutting an Op Ed (in the Times) saying newspapers needed to follow the foundation model.
And here, for the record, is my earlier piece rebutting that Op Ed. In a nutshell: there are many business models that can work: here’s a list of ones to mix and match. The piece links to earlier analyses from Jeff Jarvis and Dave Morgan.
At the On Media conference yesterday and today, heard a wire service exec talking about how their company had a banner year in '08, but their core membership (which means newspapers) was ailing. Hmmmm.
And here, for the record, is my earlier piece rebutting that Op Ed. In a nutshell: there are many business models that can work: here’s a list of ones to mix and match. The piece links to earlier analyses from Jeff Jarvis and Dave Morgan.
At the On Media conference yesterday and today, heard a wire service exec talking about how their company had a banner year in '08, but their core membership (which means newspapers) was ailing. Hmmmm.
NY Times Digital Version More Valuable
While the NY Times may not earn enough from its digital iterations to support its operations (even minus the printing costs), I do believe the digital version is more valuable. Reader comments on one of today’s front page articles, about the boom in self-publishing, give useful details from those readers that were not included in the article. Hearing Nick Kristoff’s interviews or watching videos he’s produced from overseas, I get texture and nuance not available from his columns, wonderfully written though they be. Of course, just because there is value there does not mean it will be rewarded at a level that can support it. The creativity of the journalists and production people must be matched by creative thinking and acting from the business and finance sides.
Thoughts on Newspapers Becoming Not-for-Profits
A NY Times Op Ed today suggests newspapers should move to a foundation-supported model and become 501(c)3 not-for-profits. Through that model, with its tax advantages, the newspaper business can survive, the authors write.
My thoughts on the idea are here. To sum up a longish essay: For-profit can work in the news biz, just maybe not the way newspapers practice it.
My thoughts on the idea are here. To sum up a longish essay: For-profit can work in the news biz, just maybe not the way newspapers practice it.
AP Signs up 500 Papers for Online Sharing
I've written about AP's difficulties as papers eschew the service in favor of trading among themselves, or challenge its two-year cancellation policy.
Today, comes word (via PaidContent) that they've signed up 500 papers to trade stories, photos and graphics via its AP Member Marketplace.
On Newspapers Canceling AP
Earlier, I saw the AP having trouble if a group of Ohio papers didn't use it. Now, Jay Rosen points us to to a Wired pickup that links to this story from the MinnPost about Minneapolis Star Tribune sending the AP the requisite two-year notice that it intends to cancel. This after five other papers did so. Now, this doesn't mean that the Strib will necessarily drop AP. Sending notice ahead of a deadline is a common tactic. In fact, some lawyers routinely send out cancellation notices as a matter of course, to they can cancel in the event they do actually wish to cancel. And, Rosen also notes, The Spokesman Review is challenging the two-year cancellation notice requirement.
Nevertheless, it has for decades been a "given" that a U.S. newspaper would take the AP as a core component or important supplement of its news coverage. The MinnPost writer, David Brauer, talks of the damage to the area's news gathering if the AP loses the Star Tribune's participation (and fees). But he also notes that papers could use that money to pay for more of their own reporting:
A Newsweek editor once quipped in an editorial meeting that "if we have two examples, it's a trend, three, a cover story." Well, now we have at least a half-dozen.
Nevertheless, it has for decades been a "given" that a U.S. newspaper would take the AP as a core component or important supplement of its news coverage. The MinnPost writer, David Brauer, talks of the damage to the area's news gathering if the AP loses the Star Tribune's participation (and fees). But he also notes that papers could use that money to pay for more of their own reporting:
If AP gets less cash and copy from the Strib and cuts its local presence, Minnesota’s news ecosystem could take a big hit. The wire service’s copy fleshes out local papers big and small; a diminished AP weakens a key line of defense for cash-strapped newsrooms..
Then again, non-metro editors around the nation were among the first to give AP notice; most said they’d rather save the coin for their own staffers (even as their publishers were thinking cash flow)
A Newsweek editor once quipped in an editorial meeting that "if we have two examples, it's a trend, three, a cover story." Well, now we have at least a half-dozen.
Surveyed in An Alternate Newspaper Universe
Just as the news broke that the New York Post and Daily News might cooperate in production to save costs for their print editions, I was called at home, randomly I suppose, to participate in a phone survey about my newspaper reading habits. I normally would hang up on something like this -- their callback number and company affiliation was masked from my caller ID, which I on principle find wrong. But I participated out of curiosity, and thinking I might get something out of it. The survey made me feel like I was answering questions from more than a decade ago. If this is the kind of research newspaper companies are commissioning, I fear they’re in even more trouble than we all think. The ways I was being asked just didn’t seem relevant to someone in the modern flow of media and information.
A representative from a company called American Opinion Research Group, subcontracting for Discovery Research, asked me about my newspaper preferences, and what I thought of the Post (whom I suspect was commissioning the survey), the Daily News and sometimes The New York Times, as if picking up the print editions were still the way I read the papers. (The lady on the line seemed positively flummoxed when she asked how I got my print copy of the Post, and I said when I read it in print it was almost always because I'd been handed it for free; it was as if there were no check box in her survey form for that -- as opposed to “at work,” “newsstand,” or “subscription at home”.) There was also an implicit strain in the questions that I read the papers the way people used to: pick it up, flip from one page to another, go through it systematically, or at least jump to the section I like and flip through -- rather than the way I’m just as likely to now: find something through an RSS feed, or a blog or Twitter link, or randomly in a search, then perhaps poke around the site(s) as I look for more in a sort of serendipitous flow limited only by my attention span or time.
A lot of the survey taker’s questions centered on what I think about the Post and/or the Daily News, including, which:
Inserts
Ads
She also asked if I considered the Post “conservative” or “liberal”. (Guess which I picked?)
Other questions concerned my buying or reading habits (which are really two different things, though the survey seemed to conclude that “read” meant “buy” -- which as we all know isn’t the case). Nary a question about blogs, online preferences, RSS readers, whether I looked at the papers on a mobile device, click on any ads, prefer to read in print or online, would like the edition emailed to me ... etc, etc. It was as if the online universe didn’t exist.
The woman kind of had a hitch in her voice when I answered that the Post was less reliable but more enjoyable than the News. For many of us New Yorkers there's an enjoyment and amusement factor in reading the Post, as much as there is an information consumption one. Even if we suspect something isn’t all true, we enjoy the vivaciousness of the prose and the speculation that what’s written has an element of veracity. And I know from discussions with folks far and wide -- not just in the media biz -- that I’m not alone in this way of reading the paper.
I’m still waiting, too, for the email component to the phone survey I participated in, but it hasn’t come -- or the spam filter ate it.
A representative from a company called American Opinion Research Group, subcontracting for Discovery Research, asked me about my newspaper preferences, and what I thought of the Post (whom I suspect was commissioning the survey), the Daily News and sometimes The New York Times, as if picking up the print editions were still the way I read the papers. (The lady on the line seemed positively flummoxed when she asked how I got my print copy of the Post, and I said when I read it in print it was almost always because I'd been handed it for free; it was as if there were no check box in her survey form for that -- as opposed to “at work,” “newsstand,” or “subscription at home”.) There was also an implicit strain in the questions that I read the papers the way people used to: pick it up, flip from one page to another, go through it systematically, or at least jump to the section I like and flip through -- rather than the way I’m just as likely to now: find something through an RSS feed, or a blog or Twitter link, or randomly in a search, then perhaps poke around the site(s) as I look for more in a sort of serendipitous flow limited only by my attention span or time.
A lot of the survey taker’s questions centered on what I think about the Post and/or the Daily News, including, which:
- is more “fun and lively”
- is most compelling
- has better sports
- has better columnists
- know sthe boroughs and in touch with New York
- has the better
Inserts
Ads
- Front Page
- has stories that made me most interested in sharing with family or friends.
She also asked if I considered the Post “conservative” or “liberal”. (Guess which I picked?)
Other questions concerned my buying or reading habits (which are really two different things, though the survey seemed to conclude that “read” meant “buy” -- which as we all know isn’t the case). Nary a question about blogs, online preferences, RSS readers, whether I looked at the papers on a mobile device, click on any ads, prefer to read in print or online, would like the edition emailed to me ... etc, etc. It was as if the online universe didn’t exist.
The woman kind of had a hitch in her voice when I answered that the Post was less reliable but more enjoyable than the News. For many of us New Yorkers there's an enjoyment and amusement factor in reading the Post, as much as there is an information consumption one. Even if we suspect something isn’t all true, we enjoy the vivaciousness of the prose and the speculation that what’s written has an element of veracity. And I know from discussions with folks far and wide -- not just in the media biz -- that I’m not alone in this way of reading the paper.
I’m still waiting, too, for the email component to the phone survey I participated in, but it hasn’t come -- or the spam filter ate it.
The Newspaper Industry Has a Year: Roger Black
The famed designer, whom I consider a friend, writes:
A year.
Newspapers have about a year to get rid of all the people who can’t pull their own weight and to redeploy all the smart energetic journalists who can find the great stories and push them out to print, web and video. Some papers still have lots of talent, but they must push it to the front so readers can find it and find that they like it. Papers which continue to bury the smart people (or have already driven them away) will not make the cut. With the current recession, if newspapers don't move quickly, the market will crush them.
A year.
The Real Danger for AP
UPDATED: Clarifying a few points.
= = = = = =
There’s a lot of grumbling and retorting about the AP’s attempt to then sort-of retreat from making bloggers either paraphrase or take down their pickups of material from the venerated wire service. But there’s a more immediate problem that runs deeper than complaints from bloggers like Michael Arrington, Jeff Jarvis or Jeff Nolan.
A few weeks back the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on "On the Media" talked about how newspapers in Ohio were reaping great benefits trading material, and linking and cross linking. More importantly, she said she was no longer reliant on The Associated Press for her stories from the region but instead was getting the original versions direct from the other sources around the state rather than paying “a big chunk” of her budget, about $1 million for rewritten AP stories. Picking up directly, on the Web, and putting other papers’ stories directly in the newspaper was also better quality, she said, and readers were noticing:
If local papers skip the AP, that means the core constituency is in revolt. That will potentially be more corrosive than the fight with the blogosphere over fair use. "As long as there are are two papers to trade articles, the AP will exist," one rake at the wire service -- where I worked for seven years on the international desk and as a foreign correspondent -- quipped to me once. But what if the members form their own cooperatives and cut out the AP as middleman?
I’m not saying this will happen immediately. AP, whose core business is the not-for-profit cooperative dues of member newspapers, has offered to cut its rates starting next year. Newspapers, despite ad and circulation declines for decades, have been notoriously slow moving, and many will be reluctant to pick up content from papers they might think of as competitors; the AP has given them the cover they sought to do so less blatantly. But the economic pressures are only increasing as revenues and readership decline more precipitously, and any success in Ohio could be the thin edge of a wedge. “We've set up this little cooperative,” said the Plain Dealer editor, Susan Goldberg. “I don't know how it'll work in the future, but right now it's working really well.”
Add to that AP’s deal to have its direct results placed higher in Google than member papers, further pissing them off, and newspapers will look harder at the Ohio example. We're talking months or perhaps years, certainly not decades. The example could spread nationally or internationally.
CEO Tom Curley has been leading the AP into a future in which an increasing share of its revenues comes from sources other than member dues, such as direct photo revenues, Web content services and broadcast fees. But the transformation may not be fast enough. AP doesn't have the luxury of Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters in which news gathering can be supported by financial terminals that really bring in the bucks.
AP should own the Web. It has its roots in the trading and sharing of information. It gets a significant chunk of revenue from providing the backbone through which others pass content. It coded and tagged and parsed content with everything from category codes to prioritization markings, and ways to match text and photos decades before those practices became fashionable for everyone. But culture and old habits are very hard to change, and I fear for the company's viability while hoping it can work out a more creative win-win solution for all.
= = = = = =
There’s a lot of grumbling and retorting about the AP’s attempt to then sort-of retreat from making bloggers either paraphrase or take down their pickups of material from the venerated wire service. But there’s a more immediate problem that runs deeper than complaints from bloggers like Michael Arrington, Jeff Jarvis or Jeff Nolan.
A few weeks back the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on "On the Media" talked about how newspapers in Ohio were reaping great benefits trading material, and linking and cross linking. More importantly, she said she was no longer reliant on The Associated Press for her stories from the region but instead was getting the original versions direct from the other sources around the state rather than paying “a big chunk” of her budget, about $1 million for rewritten AP stories. Picking up directly, on the Web, and putting other papers’ stories directly in the newspaper was also better quality, she said, and readers were noticing:
“I mean, we've always had access to news from all over the state. It was just, you know, it went through the AP mill. I frankly think we're getting better, more distinctively written stories because they're not going through the AP mill.”
If local papers skip the AP, that means the core constituency is in revolt. That will potentially be more corrosive than the fight with the blogosphere over fair use. "As long as there are are two papers to trade articles, the AP will exist," one rake at the wire service -- where I worked for seven years on the international desk and as a foreign correspondent -- quipped to me once. But what if the members form their own cooperatives and cut out the AP as middleman?
I’m not saying this will happen immediately. AP, whose core business is the not-for-profit cooperative dues of member newspapers, has offered to cut its rates starting next year. Newspapers, despite ad and circulation declines for decades, have been notoriously slow moving, and many will be reluctant to pick up content from papers they might think of as competitors; the AP has given them the cover they sought to do so less blatantly. But the economic pressures are only increasing as revenues and readership decline more precipitously, and any success in Ohio could be the thin edge of a wedge. “We've set up this little cooperative,” said the Plain Dealer editor, Susan Goldberg. “I don't know how it'll work in the future, but right now it's working really well.”
Add to that AP’s deal to have its direct results placed higher in Google than member papers, further pissing them off, and newspapers will look harder at the Ohio example. We're talking months or perhaps years, certainly not decades. The example could spread nationally or internationally.
CEO Tom Curley has been leading the AP into a future in which an increasing share of its revenues comes from sources other than member dues, such as direct photo revenues, Web content services and broadcast fees. But the transformation may not be fast enough. AP doesn't have the luxury of Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters in which news gathering can be supported by financial terminals that really bring in the bucks.
AP should own the Web. It has its roots in the trading and sharing of information. It gets a significant chunk of revenue from providing the backbone through which others pass content. It coded and tagged and parsed content with everything from category codes to prioritization markings, and ways to match text and photos decades before those practices became fashionable for everyone. But culture and old habits are very hard to change, and I fear for the company's viability while hoping it can work out a more creative win-win solution for all.
NYTimes Magazine and Emily Gould. Not Shocking
Replying here to Susan Mernit’s post about the New York Times magazine, cuz BlogHer won’t let me log on to comments.
NYT magazine, though it has “New York Times” in front of the “Magazine” part of its title, behaves like a magazine and goes for what’ll get the most people to pick it up.
NYT magazine, though it has “New York Times” in front of the “Magazine” part of its title, behaves like a magazine and goes for what’ll get the most people to pick it up.
... Shocking.
A woman in her 20s who worked for Gawker
... shocking, again!
You’re right, Susan, that perhaps the most shocking thing is that what used to be the Gray Lady is trying things to bring itself into a more competitive era. The magazine in a Web era has to compete in a way it never had to when, only in print, it
Sure, it’s a bit like Vanity Fair, which tucks its impactful reportage inside issues that sport fawning stories of Hollywood celebs on the covers. But that’s the game, and it supports the quality journalism. And now, it’s a game the Times is trying to play.
Oh, and by the way, if I hadn’t been told I wouldn’t have known it was the cover story -- I read it -- quickly -- online, via a link.
A woman in her 20s who worked for Gawker
a) was perhaps naive about the effects her performance has on others (in Gawker and to a male colleague), and trying to find sexual identity
b) can’t quite give up the desire for attention.
... shocking, again!
You’re right, Susan, that perhaps the most shocking thing is that what used to be the Gray Lady is trying things to bring itself into a more competitive era. The magazine in a Web era has to compete in a way it never had to when, only in print, it
Sure, it’s a bit like Vanity Fair, which tucks its impactful reportage inside issues that sport fawning stories of Hollywood celebs on the covers. But that’s the game, and it supports the quality journalism. And now, it’s a game the Times is trying to play.
Oh, and by the way, if I hadn’t been told I wouldn’t have known it was the cover story -- I read it -- quickly -- online, via a link.
Crovitz: In Media Consumers Have it Better than Business
Former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz’ inaugural commentary for the paper today repeats a fair amount of what he told the Chicago School of Business last month : that James Rothschild was annoyed over how the telegraph leveled the information playing field (and that we tend to overestimate technology’s effect in the short-run, and underestimate it long-run. (Witness the initial hype over the Web at first, and how it’s now part of daily life with little fanfare.)
But a lot of what he said at the CSB speech -- a thoughtful analysis of today’s media landscape -- wasn’t in the column and bears repeating. One crucial point he made was that B2B information applications now often lag behind consumer ones. Consumer-focused products tend to have better interfaces and applications than the high-priced business and financial services ones. He calls this a “real challenge for the B2B industry, which has so far been less affected by the digital age than B2C.”
“Much of the innovation is based on the broad consumer market,” B2C rather than the B2B market, he says. This is a see change. It’s been a given that people pay handsomely for business-oriented information, and get real value from it. But Crovitz notes that financial professionals with high-priced terminals at their desks today will often turned to Yahoo Finance. This movement has big implications for B2B information providers.
Other points he makes:
* Subscription plus ad revenue “works very well” as a revenue model. (In other words, the WSJ is smart to have subscriptions and ads; new owners News Corp., of course, considered doing away with them.
* Software and information are more powerful together than separate. “Information and software are more closely linked and mutually dependent than ever before. Changes in each affect the other. “The great changes in computing power” have shifted the information industry, changes in information have affected software..
* Neither content nor distribution is king: the consumer is.
But a lot of what he said at the CSB speech -- a thoughtful analysis of today’s media landscape -- wasn’t in the column and bears repeating. One crucial point he made was that B2B information applications now often lag behind consumer ones. Consumer-focused products tend to have better interfaces and applications than the high-priced business and financial services ones. He calls this a “real challenge for the B2B industry, which has so far been less affected by the digital age than B2C.”
“Much of the innovation is based on the broad consumer market,” B2C rather than the B2B market, he says. This is a see change. It’s been a given that people pay handsomely for business-oriented information, and get real value from it. But Crovitz notes that financial professionals with high-priced terminals at their desks today will often turned to Yahoo Finance. This movement has big implications for B2B information providers.
Other points he makes:
* Subscription plus ad revenue “works very well” as a revenue model. (In other words, the WSJ is smart to have subscriptions and ads; new owners News Corp., of course, considered doing away with them.
* Software and information are more powerful together than separate. “Information and software are more closely linked and mutually dependent than ever before. Changes in each affect the other. “The great changes in computing power” have shifted the information industry, changes in information have affected software..
* Neither content nor distribution is king: the consumer is.
Newspapers' iPod Moment
Jeff Jarvis is asking for newspapers' "iPod moment" without fully describing what it is. Here's my response:
The iPod moment for newspapers will be when truly functional ePaper hits... color, touchscreen, wireless Internet built in, agnostic to standard, plays video, can work and read when not connected. A cross of the functionality of the iPhone, today's browsers and the TimesReader. It will be even more of a moment if that ePaper can also allow data entry for tagging and blogging, VOIP and so on. I dunno how many years.
Remember, people from MIT Media Lab and elsewhere imagined such a paper for the movie Minority Report. It was shown as USA Today in one scene on the train.
I agree with others, though, that it's coming incrementally. I can, today, do many of these things on my smartphone, and certainly on a laptop I carry most places.
The iPod moment for newspapers will be when truly functional ePaper hits... color, touchscreen, wireless Internet built in, agnostic to standard, plays video, can work and read when not connected. A cross of the functionality of the iPhone, today's browsers and the TimesReader. It will be even more of a moment if that ePaper can also allow data entry for tagging and blogging, VOIP and so on. I dunno how many years.
Remember, people from MIT Media Lab and elsewhere imagined such a paper for the movie Minority Report. It was shown as USA Today in one scene on the train.
I agree with others, though, that it's coming incrementally. I can, today, do many of these things on my smartphone, and certainly on a laptop I carry most places.
Why This Times Reader Abhors the TimesReader
While we're on the topic of readers: I wanted to like the TimesReader. I really did. I want a nifty screen experience that goes farther than a browser can, expands, contracts, shows ads seamlessly, can be read even when I'm not online, has great visuals. I've been playing with it for a few weeks now, since they relaunched it for free for print subs.
But the TimesReader is less functional and useful than NYTimes.com: no good search of decades of material, no sub-divisions of its sections (like Media and Advertising within Business section), no video section, and on and on. Plus, it's clunky, and hogs memory and slows other applications, and when I try to disconnect asks me if I really want to, and doesn't show me "today's paper" if I want to peak at the Times the way my mother-in-law might have read it, and it doesn't always show me the photos with the piece, unless I happen to click on the link to "show photos" or blow up the page to the correct size for that. I get it free because I subscribe to the weekends in print. But why would I pay $14.95 per month rather than just read it on the Web? I'm no tech genius, but I do know how to grab pages I want and read them offline. Plus my browsers and screens are pretty legible, and set the way I like.
I'm sure there are folks at the Times who are excited about the possibilities to show and track ads of adjustable sizes and have a proprietary platform. But what about the user?
But the TimesReader is less functional and useful than NYTimes.com: no good search of decades of material, no sub-divisions of its sections (like Media and Advertising within Business section), no video section, and on and on. Plus, it's clunky, and hogs memory and slows other applications, and when I try to disconnect asks me if I really want to, and doesn't show me "today's paper" if I want to peak at the Times the way my mother-in-law might have read it, and it doesn't always show me the photos with the piece, unless I happen to click on the link to "show photos" or blow up the page to the correct size for that. I get it free because I subscribe to the weekends in print. But why would I pay $14.95 per month rather than just read it on the Web? I'm no tech genius, but I do know how to grab pages I want and read them offline. Plus my browsers and screens are pretty legible, and set the way I like.
I'm sure there are folks at the Times who are excited about the possibilities to show and track ads of adjustable sizes and have a proprietary platform. But what about the user?
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