Hail Mary – noun: A long forward pass in football, esp. as a last-ditch attempt at the end of a game, where completion is considered unlikely.
New reports have several companies on the verge of releasing large screen electronic readers designed specifically for reading newspaper content. The first such product may be unveiled as soon as this week — a large screen version of Amazon’s Kindle, which we first reported on last year. This is setting up a lot like the newspaper industry’s Hail Mary. And it’s a pass they won’t catch.
The industry has been hit worse than anyone else by the ad spending slow down in our current recession. Almost all of the major newspaper companies are bleeding, and this week The New York Times Company may have to close the Boston Globe — a huge metropolitan newspaper. It’s sad. Some of the best journalistic work throughout this country’s history has been done through newspapers. But if these companies really are putting their faith in a large screen Kindle to save them, it may be time to start mourning them for real.
The idea that a large screen Kindle (or any similar device) could save newspapers is a joke — and one that perhaps shows these newspapers do not even know their own killer. It’s not the “paper” part of newspaper that’s the problem, it’s the “news.” As in, newspapers are way too slow at delivering it in the age of the Internet. People are unsubscribing from newspapers because what’s the point of reading something in print a day after you’ve read it online? Sure, there are certain takes by certain authors worth reading later, but even most of those are now online first. And of course there is something to be said for good journalism, but that is being done online as well — and can be viewed for free. For the most part, the newspaper industry as it stands today is the very definition of “a day late and a dollar short.”
Would the newspapers save a lot of money by literally stopping the presses, and distributing their content digitally to these readers? Of course, but they would save just as much money — if not more — by entirely switching to the online format. Some have already done that, but many don’t want to because it’s proven hard to make people pay for content on the web. But the idea that people are going to run out in droves to get these new giant Kindles just to have the privilege of paying for newspaper content is absurd.
Yes, some people are paying for the content on regular Kindles right now, but that’s only because that device has a gateway drug: Books. Books have proven to be popular in electronic format (beyond Kindle, just look at the iPhone eBook sales to prove it). But books are fundamentally different from newspapers. There isn’t a free online equivalent to books, like the newspapers have to contend with in blogs. People do not buy Kindles just to get the newspaper or magazine content, and they’re not about to start now.
In fact, I’d argue that it’s the much less sexy textbook business that could be the real key to this big Kindle. Textbooks are an absolute rip-off in print form, with many costing over $100 a book. If Amazon was able to offer textbooks on this large Kindle at a discount the same way it offers a discount on regular books on the regular Kindle, that would be worth the price of admission for just about every college student in the country right there. And a Kindle textbook reader makes sense because it would make bookmarking, taking notes and syncing all of those things up to the cloud, a snap.
But the number one problem with the Kindle is its price. At $360 it’s way too expensive for the average consumer to go out and buy. So how much would a Kindle with a larger screen cost? You’d have to imagine it would be more, if not significantly more. So let’s assume that it’s $500. And if it’s $500, for a device meant to read newspapers and magazines (in grayscale no less), it might as well be $10,000. Again, the only reason the Kindle is selling pretty well at its ridiculous price is because of books. Newspaper and magazine content will not mobilize users in the same way.
Speaking of mobilizing, one reason people still do enjoy newspapers is because they are very mobile. But who on Earth is going to want to take a large screen Kindle on the go? Sure, if it is also a tablet computer that has many functions, it makes sense to carry around — but again, just a device for reading newspaper content? No. And such a device, like the Kindle itself, is just a holdover until all of these devices start to merge. And that’s going to happen sooner rather than later.
So I implore newspapers not to put too much stock in these big screen Kindles. I know the options are awfully thin as to what can save you, and the Kindle is a potentially sexy savior; but it is not the answer. I’m really worried when I read articles like the one in the NYT that quotes high ranking print media industry folks as getting all excited about the possibilities with these large screen readers. This is a false hope, people — a Hail Mary.
this makes perfect sense. people won’t buy a kindle to read a newspaper.
no touchscreen and no colors would mean dirt cheap.
like how the kindle with no touchscreen and no colors is dirt cheap?
wait for the release
I waited and it isn’t touchscreen color. I guess that was a fail on multiple levels.
You talk sense MG. Never would any one buy this larger Kindle for newspapers’ sake. And moreover, the very thought of reading your favorite newspaper on Kindle is not that very pleasant. Imagine, who would carry this one from place to place when you can get daily dose of news delivered on your smart phone? For books, yes! But there again, the price pinches on your pockets and that is the worst part of it. Maybe, it would take time for the larger Kindle idea to take form.
You’re forgetting the major advantage that the Kindle has in its Whispernet service.
It’s an always connected device. If Amazon has some framework in mind for pushing out updates through this, it could be just as quick as the internet, wherever you are in the US, without a computer. If you can’t see how this would give newspapers the best of both worlds, then you’re crazy.
As for textbooks, until there’s one of these with a touchscreen and/or active digitizer for pen input, I don’t see it going all that far. When I was in college 3 years ago, pretty much everyone took read textbooks by writing in the margins, by highlighting and underlining, etc. (Almost everyone but me, in fact.) I realize that you can mark up a book in Kindle similarly, but I doubt that more typed words on a black and white screen will be able to stand out nearly as well as handwriting can.
And you’re going to carry around the big tablet wherever you are — without a computer?
I wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t buy a Kindle either. I could just see it being very popular in the same older demographics where the Kindle currently is doing very well.
On second thought, calling you crazy was a bit of an exaggeration, but I really do think that you totally missed the point by writing about how newspapers are static, dated content when referring to a Kindle version, when the Kindle has wireless capabilities built in that would be perfect for a newspaper.
Okay, but then you’re assuming newspapers would be constantly updating their content throughout the day like…blogs. Not sure I see that happening — although that’s not a bad idea.
I was thinking slightly more along the lines of how the cable networks do their sites, like CNN as an example, than like blogs, but same general idea.
And for a really great example of the type of stuff that’s possible, you should check out the Calibre ebook manager. It has built-in ‘recipes’ to download news from the sites’ RSS feeds to present in a much more streamlined e-book type format, and can then transfer that to readers like the Kindle or the Sony PRS-500. (See the second video here: http://calibre....wnloads/videos/). Doing that wirelessly and automatically is the sort of thing I envision being key features of any newspaper-focused Kindle.
yeah calibre is the best thing ever:) still, i only use my sony reader when i want to read a book. turning it on just to browse a blog is pointless
MG,
Back in the stone age, when I was delivering papers (70’s), they did exactly that – updated the paper throughout the day. There’d be the morning edition that had news up until about 10PM the previous evening, but didn’t have the late-night scores, the mid-day edition with late night and overnight news, and late day delivery (with the breaking business news that happened before noon.)
The local paper put stars in the header on the front page, and the 5-star edition was the latest in the day. So maybe there were even five editions.
With modern technology, there’s no reason that this couldn’t be 24 editions per day, or even 24×60 editions.
Here’s an image from 1935 with a 5-star “morning edition”, that I found in Google Images. Clearly not a new concept to update the papers throughout the day: http://www.holo...es/image033.gif
We have such self updating newspapers in Sci-fi movies
If I’m reading magazines and newspapers and carrying them along with me, this is just as convenient, that is if it’s not breakable when I inevitably drop it while getting my cup of coffee. I think too many people look at a larger screen device and say “man I wouldn’t carry that around” and forget all the things they do bring with them. Every college student has a book or notebook with them, every business man, (nearly) a case or laptop bag, every kid, a book bag. It’s fine. Unless you are able to grab a paper from wherever you finally land at your day, office, waiting room etc, then if you don’t bring an object with you, how do you read. For those who just like small stuff, why bother reading this article? It’s a big object, not a phone. Wait for a headline about folding or rollup devices.
Newspapers are always updating. Are there any left that don’t publish online as well as on paper? Even in the days before the internet large papers would publish and a number of editions. And the production process always meant that stories had to be completed to rolling deadlines. The paper you buy is a snapshot, frozen in time.
A connected device such as the Kindle can be updated continuously. That’s how it might command a premium from, say, WSJ readers. I’m not sure how many regular newspaper readers would pay the extra to get the same service as they can get online or from a phone.
I’m in the used textbook business so I”m watching the developments of this very close. Here are my 2 cents why it won’t take off.
Amazon’s prices on the E version of textbooks will still be expensive. I recently sold a book on the used market at a cheaper price than the Kindle version. Students don’t really lug around there books too much. Some to the library, but for the most part they stay in their rooms/dorms. Reference is something that they need to work on. With a book you remember something that was half way through the book. With the Kindle there is no spacial recognition.
Most importantly with the Kindle you will not be able to resell your books. For the smart students they can buy it reduced on the used book market and then resell it back on Amazon.
I would love to have a Kindle for textbooks. The resale value at my college sucks and the Kindle, while a lot up front would save me thousands of dollars. And, as I start law school, I could then move on to more specialized texts. It’d be a great deal.
It is hard to change the habits of learning from a paper book. Also, screen time [watching TV, computer screen, or Kindle] beyond limited hours can affect our sleep patterns and aging.
Hope, paper books survive.
“screen time beyond limited hours can affect sleep patterns and aging”
Please cite. What you’re proposing is that the very act of being near a screen damages sleep patterns and accelerates aging. Never mind the fact that the Kindle, by it’s very nature, is more akin to regular old paper than an electronic screen.
What processes do you exactly think the screens do that hurts us? What, exactly, do they do that’s different than a book?
Good luck with that. In undergrad, only one textbook came with a DRM-free pdf.
There are a few torrent sites online with textbooks, but they never have the books you need.
Remember, most profs make their money on textbook deals, either taking incentives from publishers who want the captive students to buy the books, or writing their own books themselves. It wasn’t until I started taking LLM courses (specializing in an area of law) that profs stopped using textbooks. You’d think that profs would use digital for things like first year law courses (property, contracts, torts, civil procedure), because most of these significant change maybe once every 10 or 20 years. But no, they don’t. The only reason they do it with LLMs is because the two big LLM fields (tax and IP) can substantially change multiple times per semester.
The problem is that the vast majority of books are not available in digital, and the publishers keep giving incentives up to keep it that way.
I agree with the basic premise that a bigger Kindle won’t save newspapers. I already have an even better device to read newspapers: my iPhone. Most papers’ mobile sites don’t have near the number of ads as their regular sites do, so it’s not intrusive. Plus, the sites are updated throughout the day, so the content is current. And my understanding of the Kindle version of the newspapers is that it is a one time daily delivery of an electronic version of the actual hard copy one. So no updates throughout the day. Plus a subscription price up to $14/month per paper, where my web browsing is free.
As someone who has returned to school later in life, I would definitely use a device to purchase text books. But why this one? If Apple is indeed coming out with a ‘media device’ that uses the iPhone OS, it will have all the Kindle functionality with an honest to goodness, Amazon approved, Kindle for iPhone app. Plus it will probably have a little bit more functionality too, like decent web access, and VOIP over WiFi, and all the other rumored functionality.
But I hope Amazon gets the textbook content onto the Kindle store, because one way or another, I’d rather buy it there.
Kindle is for textbooks, one cannot deny that. But if you see, Kindle is almost like an additional “nuisance” otherwise (if not for textbooks). You cannot keep carrying it like your mobile phone. Even if you do, what use it is except to read. You can as well do it on your comp or as you said, iPhone.
Again, I want to know if Kindle affects the eyes (make them tired/sore) in anyway after continuous reading. Because you don’t have that health hazard with a textbook.
Agreed re: iPhone. Check out this recent AdAge article: Publishers Seize on iPhone as Great White Digital Hope for Print adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=136265
I agree absolutely with what you say about newspapers. The only possible beneficiaries are the likes of the WSJ where there’s a less price-sensitive readership who might be willing to pay for added speed and convenience.
I’m not sure though that you understand the pricing model for academic text books and journals. It’s not the medium that’s expensive. It’s the content.
High-level academic texts have a very limited and inflexible market. There may be just a few hundred institutions worldwide that have people that can understand these texts. For them this material may be priceless, but it’s unlikely the rest of the world would pay anything at all.
I can see how a Kindle in tablet-PC form might be more convenient for accessing academic texts, but they’re unlikely to be cheaper. Even the impact of piracy is likely to be less than elsewhere as there’s an obvious incentive for academics to try dissuade students from stealing income which should go to their colleagues.
Sorry if I didn’t make it clear in my post, but I didn’t complain about the current pricing of textbooks. Although we can get into an interesting discussion about book and software bundling that discourages the secondary sales market, but that’s for another day.
I would like the content on an electronic device so I don’t have to carry around 5 10 lb. textbooks! Not to mention the ability to take a few trees out of the pulping stream, which ought to lower the price a little. I’m not expecting $9.99 textbooks, but if I could save 20% by going electronic, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Paper is one of the cheapest components of textbook unit cost. (If you are worried abotu how making paper damages the environment, it’s the water by the mills you have to worry about, not the number of trees the paper companies grow and manage in their forests). You’re textbooks are costly becaue you are paying for the copyeditor, the developmental editor, the page layout tech, the indexer, the “free” ancillary packages, etc; none of these costs are required for your latest trade paperback.
The problem driving newspapers into closure is not speed of delivery so much as lack of objectivity. If editors insisted on unadulterated factual news rather than permitting or encouraging contributors (one can hardly call many of them “journalists” anymore) to tailor their reporting to specific ideologies their papers could extend readership beyond those who already agree with them to those who wish to know what is actually happening.
Connected devices like the Kindle could certainly deliver content faster, and would permit publishers to offer an endless variety of customized editions, but in the end one reads the news to form opinions, not merely to reinforce them.
lack of objectivity has nothing to do with newspaper’s problems. they have had problems with objectivity since they’ve existed. their problem is that more and more people are finding instant news online and no longer feel compelled to wait until 7:00 AM or 5:00 PM for the newspaper to arrive.
we got tired of having so much newspaper scattered around to be recycled that we just gave up on our paper. and we disagreed with our paper’s political positions most of the time and still subscribed for years and years, fwiw.
i think textbooks is where it’s at for the Kindle.
http://www.plas...adingDevice.jpg
So where is the the long lead investigative reporting going? I, for one, haven’t been finding it on blogs.
My own experience is this: I purchased the Kindle for books. However, several of the books I have wanted to buy have been unavailable on Kindle, and so I have tended to keep reading “real” books. My Kindle, though, is getting a heavy workout. I’m constantly reading the newspapers, magazines and blogs I have on the Kindle, and they are updated daily via Whispernet. I just love this, and take my Kindle wherever I go. Now, if Amazon would just stock the books I want, when I want them . . .
Textbook will never be “cheap”…
The problem is, it’s niche market – most textbooks won’t sell in more than several thousand copies (in best case). Per 100 $ it means couple of hundreds thousand.
If royality is 20 percent author gets around several ten thousands. That’s not much, if you take in account he’s expert in area, and have put years of work in it.
Problem’s not a print, problem’s work around textbook and Kindle surely won’t solve that. But maybe instead of writing whole textbooks just write complete chapters/articles on some topics and sell them via Kindle could solve the dilemma of high price.
i wrote a textbook a few years ago. 4 authors and we each got $3. the price of the textbook after publisher and bookstore markups was $50. we lowered our author share to $4 total and the final price went down to below $30. that’s an incredible markup for what little bit the authors were getting. the Kindle cuts out the university bookstores that mark stuff up 20% or more. Amazon gets very little on book sales for the Kindle. publishers can no longer justify their big chunk for printing presses and binding and all that. i could see author’s still getting a decent stipend per book and the Kindle price being around $20 as opposed to current $80 or so.
personally, i just completed a free online textbook for my students using the book module in Drupal. if students want a printed copy then they can order one using lulu.com for just under $8 and it’s bound and all. no publisher and no bookstore. of course, no stipend for me either. but being in a technology field means i appreciate having constant updates, which are easier online than in a paper textbook. maybe eventually i’ll add Google Adsense. hmmm.
And no developmental editor, copy editor, indexer, or proofreader. Who checked your text for factual and grammatical errors?
I read a newspaper the other day and it was a choir. I had no options to check out updates, interact with the community, or post comments discrediting stuff written.
The power of the internet might be hard to monetize but it keeps a blogger/writer/author honest and in check. It’s really the power of the people and community that makes a successful blog/news paper site fun to use.
At first I felt bad for news paper companies but then I realized that a lot of them just were part of the agenda to push their views onto others. Now I have options to choose from a 1,000 different news sites and can drill down to the facts. I’m allowed to see both sides of the story and make a judgment call on it.
Kindle won’t save newspapers but the Kindle is definitely in need of a bigger screen. I think automatically updated newspapers via a digital tablet (more functionality) would be the key to keeping newspapers around. However this means it’d have to be adopted by software/hardware companies and you know they are going to want to take a cut.
The only thing I enjoy from newspapers is the depth at which they dig into articles. The internet lacks this with small shops popping up with no relevant backing or research going into articles.
When sober, thoughtful newspapers disappear, yes, you’ll be able to weigh the relative opinions of Murdoch-style tabloids, on weighty subjects as the size of Brittney’s chest.
there needs to be a place for thoughtful and sober opinions, not everything can be crowdsourced
MG, what happened?
You’re usually sharper than this.
Is there any possibility you could look up a fact or two to back up any of the assertions in this amusing piece of linkbait?
(Yes, I appear to have become the sort of commenter that shows up on TechCrunch early in the morning and argues with the Internet. Great.)
For example, how many Kindle users are paying for newspaper subscriptions on their device? That’s not easy data to get a hold of, but here’s a shred: http://tr.im/kpCp Seems relevant, no?
Next opportunity to add data to this post: A little poll of sorts that went around a month or two ago in an attempt to figure out the average age of Kindle owners: http://tr.im/kpD8 Answer? It’s not exactly a textbook-perfect model for gathering data, but in this case, the majority of Kindle owners were over 40.
Could that mean anything for newspapers? Maybe. But it definitely should be a part of any discussion about whether an e-ink/e-paper reader sold/packaged/branded by a news organization will be one way to retain an aging subscriber base.
Next up: You bring up the problem of bringing news-on-paper to readers at a speed that compares with the Web, but who the heck said an e-ink device wouldn’t have wireless access built into it? That, yes, would be nuts. I expect a news organization’s device to constantly update, as it would on the Web.
Second to last thing: Sure, a big flat Kindle seems like an awkward thing to carry around. Conveniently, much of the research in the field of portable displays right now is based on the idea that people will want a flexible screen: http://tr.im/kpFN
And last thing, really getting nitpicky here, but your headline doesn’t make any sense to a football fan unless a Kindle is throwing the pass.
A Hail Mary pass is something a desperate mass of newspapers would be *throwing* at the end of the game. So, the pass would *from* newspapers, not *to* them.
Oh, and sometimes, those things work: http://tr.im/kpGD
I would much rather wait for the TechCrunch Tablet!
http://www.crun...a-little-early/
I read the nytimes on my iPhone and laptop. There is just no room for a new device.
Sure, if newspapers think for a minute that people will buy e-readers for the sole purpose of viewing a daily PDF rendering of the pulp version, they are heading down a dangerous path. But I think the general idea is that the larger format e-readers will be able to display content from a wide selection of sources and even offer basic web browsers. Thus its not the e-reader itself which should be in question, but what content will be available and what kind of business model publishers are going to implement.
If people can access their favorite newspapers and magazines from a lightweight e-reader that can update content in real time, they are going to forget about the steep cost of acquiring such a device, just as Kindle lovers have done.
This tablet is cute, but I prefer not to have this one.
I believe the picture you are using of the big screen eReader, is that of the Plastic Logic device…
http://www.plasticlogic.com/
http://www.plas...m/Partners.html
http://www.plas.../investors.html
MG,
I mostly agree with your point of view but you’re missing a few critical points that favor of this technology.
1) In production volume these epaper devices will be much cheaper than a laptop, think under $50 for an 8/12 *11 pad style device
2) News is fundamentally push technology, especially subscriber based news, so it is ideal for “broadcast style RF information feeds” the existing UHF “TV band” is the ideal band to support this application
that could be a good idea for a closed system if the current newspaper model were to survive. i ‘m afraid MG is right that we’re in a transition where news reporting becomes a more ‘personal’ issue
You’re so fucking stupid you don’t even know what you’d miss when it’s gone, which just happens to be ALL investigative journalism. Who replaces Woodward and Bernstein in keeping the gov’t in check? I’ll tell you who, no one. Why the fuck do you think 8 years of George Bush and the Iraq war happened, because all Edward R Murrow style true journalism is dead. And you’re such a fucking idiot you write about it like that’s a good thing.
I don’t have any comment on the newspaper aspect of this Kindle or this article, but I’m certainly with you on the thoughts on textbooks. As a student, I would be very pleased if textbooks were made available to the Kindle. I have one now and love it, but if textbooks were released in Kindle format I’d be ecstatic. To have textbooks in a lightweight, searchable format would be great (particularly on my back)!
it would have to be:
a) flexible
b) 2-pages or split-screen, so i can compare things in different pages
c) fast, i don’t want to wait 3 seconds just to find out the equation i was looking for was not there
d)
MG, I agree that the Kindle by itself is hardly going to be a Hail Mary for the newspaper industry.
But the traffic trends for NYTimes.com don’t really support your argument that the quality and timeliness of its reporting is causing it to lose online readers. Over a period of years, nytimes.com traffic has grown significantly. Yes, the traffic has been flat over the past few months, even a little down, but the company’s revenues have dropped far more precipitously than that.
Wouldn’t you agree that the New York Times primarily has a monetization problem as much as a problem of being out-reported or out-scooped by its myriad new competitors (of which TechCrunch is a very good example)?
It seems to me possible and likely that the Kindle along with many other technologies can create an economy over the next few years for people to pay for high-quality music, fiction, photography, films, even journalism just as the iPhone has created an economy for mobile application developers to be paid. The quality of mobile applications has, as a result, immediately increased. The Kindle alone won’t do this for journalists, but it might help.
P.S. you have a typo of some kind here: “Would the newspapers save a lot of money by literally stopping the presses, and distributing their content digitally to these readers? Of course, but they would save just as much money — if not more — by entirely switching to the online format.”
P.P.S. I know this is a quibbling comment, but I’ve really been enjoying your stuff on TechCrunch.
it’s natural that MG is biased to praise blogs more than newspapers. however the ‘brand name’ of newspapers is something blogs have not achieved yet.
just imagine what would happen if we had to rely on techcrunch to learn about the swine flu. when was the last time you read an original story (NOT one relayed by other sites) in techcrunch?
Newspapers are entrenched like several other very old industries, which are all coming to an end.
Nothing will save newspapers. It wasn’t the recession that killed them it was going to happen anyway in 5 years. The recession has just decreased their life expectancy to 3 years or less.
Its over!
Digital News?
I read it every morning on my iPhone.
In fact, I would pony up $5 per month just to see my NY Times stories (advertisement free, to save the paper).
Most other newspapers? Nope.
News junkies like me rely on niche blogs, YouTube, annnnnd Twitter more than most news sites.
Just my two cents.
I’m a big fan of Olive Software’s Active Paper – it delivers the daily newspaper in the format that everyone is familiar with, ads and annoucements intact, and when you click on a section it zooms in for readability, you turn the pages like normal, etc. I think this is the best transitional software approach out there and I don’t understand why more daily’s aren’t embracing this approach.
you know what bothers me, is the lack of interest newspapers play in receiving free content. Case in point, I have offered for over a year to let the Miami Herald republish my pizza reviews from http://www.worstpizza.com and instead they would rather pay some reporter who is not an expert in the category. Just my random rant for the day
Many newspapers are already adding new content around-the-clock. We don’t simply post once a day. My company’s own website is evolving, in many ways , into a wire service for the region we cover. So, newspapers can bring a sense of immediacy to the pixels of Kindle.
Some things never change.
I’ll never forget meeting with the Dallas Morning News in 1999 to see if they wanted to be a sponsor along with UPS and other traditional companies looking to transform their image and embrace the Internet on my website.
One executive we met with said she didn’t understand why they would want to drive people to their website for news. We explained that I would be on camera and people would see me reading the paper (we were thinking online). The executive said, “If you would show DotComGuy clipping coupons from the Sunday paper, that would be huge!” I realized they didn’t get it and politely ended the meeting shortly after that.
I love my Kindle but this is more of the same. Newspapers trying to hold onto an old way of doing business.
I think you are missing the big picture. The only reason you need a bigger Kindle to read a newspaper is so that the content producer can preserve the current layout – i.e. in page ads.
I think the reason we are seeing this launch is because the newspaper industry is thinking about an entirely new model; one where the Kindle is subsidized and in return you pay a subscription fee and the publisher gets to present you with ads.
This is why we are seeing a bigger version of the Kindle – so that ads can be presented along content. I think we will see a major joint announcement with some of the bigger newspaper players announcing an aggressive subsidy.
This is pretty smart. The Kindle saves the publishers a bunch of money on the printing & distribution side and it finally doesn’t cost them their add revenue. Consumers win because they get a cheap Kindle and more updated content.
As far a newspaper suvival – it is about classified ad revenue NOT subscription revenue.
They are mis-named. They are AdvertiserPapers NOT NewsPapers – If you named them from the point of view that speaks to the revenue that causes them to survive.
Classifed ad revenue is dead. Ad revenue is dead.
Therefore, AdvertiserPapers are dead.
The Kindle, whatever size or format, black and white or color or even 3d with dolby surround sound will NOT change the economics of AdvertiserPapers.
Dead Trees=Dead Business Model
Hesitations
This analysis lacks creativity.
There’s no reason they couldn’t provide the device for free or at low cost so long as you subscribe to several newspapers for a period of time. They could easily bundle up 7-10 major newspapers for $25/mo and let you get them all daily. A plan like that would at least offer hope to the newspaper industry. I think that’s a more compelling offering than picking up each of those newspapers everyday. It’s def. greener, more convenient and some people just want their honest daily journalism.
Look, I’m sorry but if this is £100 a pop, there are loads of people who’d get priced out of papers. Especially consumers of regional news, if I can generalise: old people, the working class, technophobes/those who haven’t had the IT education and opportunities that yuppie/middleclass technophiles have. I’m not a fan, despite the other positives you mention…
I’m surprised only a few of you, most of all MG, didn’t point out the biggest difference between newspapers and online content: the ability to comment. Newspapers fail to effectively engage readers with any immediacy whereas bloggers like MG can and do respond the same day to reader comments.
There’s absolutely something to be said for professional and expert opinion, but content has become increasingly conversation-based. Whenever I see a blog post or news story without the ability to comment or with overly moderated comments (see NYTimes) it feels too controlling to me, as though they’re trying to hide dissenting opinion. The very fact that people can voice their disagreements on blogs vs. paper news is what is a major part in what is killing newspapers. Plus articles are more difficult to share.
Lastly: macbook air + tablet pc = perfect reading tool no? Just a matter of time before tablets are under 2 pounds (or are they?)
I’m probably alone in this one: I’m 23 and not only read the newspaper, but subscribe. To me there is nothing better than waking up on a Sunday morning, making some bacon and pouring a fresh cup of joe – all with the Sunday paper sprawled across my table. The same experience does not happen on any electronic device: computer, kindle, iPhone – whatever. I don’t want to get my greasy hands all over my precious electronic devices. I don’t want to spill my coffee on said electronics.
The newspapers messed up when they put all their content online for free. Our society as a whole has gotten used to free and it’s going to take a whole lot to get us to break this mold.
It might work if it were in a rollup format… back to the scroll!
But I wonder how many newspaper honchos read blogs like Techcrunch to follow what’s happening on the tech side that affects their business.
Lots of insightful comments herein. Also am worried about the lack of investigative journalism and erosion of some important parts of our information infrastructure. How to fill the void?
I’d consider paying for a subscription if by doing so I could dramatically cut or even eliminate the number of ads one usually has to wade through.
And if it meant that articles weren’t spread across 10 pages to increase ad revenue and page views.
In other words, make it worthwhile…
It is awesome that there may be another, larger screen, Kindle coming out. It is pretty exciting that Amazon is putting a ton of effort into revolutionizing and popularize eBook.
If they properly take care of tables, graphics, annotations, that would make this a very powerful tool for textbooks. Now, whether this will save newspapers or not is, as the article said, questionable.
Anyway, I don’t have a Kindle but checked one out from a friend. The screen is very neat and unlike most standard back-lit LCDs. If you get a chance, check it out. It’s VERY cool.
On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon.
It is at http://www.uberi.com
Maybe someone will find it useful too, or at least somewhat amusing…
I totally disagree with MG here. Not all news need to be minute-fresh. A dispatch on the internal structure of feuding warlords in Afghanistan doesn’t benefit from up-to-the-second updates. An expose that took months to research and vet doesn’t, either. The blogosphere has its place of course, and does extraordinarily well on short term news and opinion, but news agencies who can send reporters in the field for months at a time and improve on the final product with many eyes and many minds still offer what the blogosphere can’t.
Besides, the rush to publish quickly often comes at the expense of thinking deeply about what is written; I’d rather read from the best (in my qualitative judgment) than read from the first.
A couple of people have already posted links to Plastic Logic’s WEB-site, so I’m going to post a link to a video I made last fall that includes the Plastic Logic device.
Next Generation of E-book Readers:
http://www.yout...re=channel_page
In case you are not familiar with Plastic Logic, their underlying research developed plastic transistors, which allow for light weight and a more flexible personal computing device (in this case a reader). The Plastic Logic WEB-site says that their 8×11 device will weigh about as much as a Kindle. PL originally claimed that they were targeting the business man who traveled and needed a light document archive. But the newspaper idea was also promoted in their product announcement in Sept. 2008.
Continuous update is on-going at most large newspaper WEB-sites, so this matching of capability and need seems quite natural.
There are some drawbacks. For instance, a lot of “throw-away” papers have emerged in the past few years. A lot of people go for morning coffee and expect to pick up a paper and then leave it on the table. it stands to reason that these papers could see cheaper production costs, but these publishers really are “Ad-Racks”, so their ability to attract advertisers might be impacted by smaller screens and the need to carry your own device with you. Of course, these devices could be added to the table tops (in one way or another) .. and then the table top becomes the news delivery source.
You are spot on….”Its the textbooks, stupid!”
amen brother man
I would love to read this comments thread on a large-format kindle sitting on my own comfy couch instead of having to sit at my desk looking at it on a 24″ lcd.
Will Kindle be a savior for newspapers? Maybe so. Kindle might be the product to finally get newspapers to realize they have to go digital. Read more at http://www.TheP...ixPrinciple.com
“Toss in freight and a third of your textbook dollar goes to stuff that can be eradicated with a Kindle. Meanwhile, the textbook margins are pretty good. All Amazon has to do is blow up the textbook market and capture some of those profits.”
From “Amazon plans big-screen Kindle, but not to save the newspapers” by Larry Dignan at: http://seekinga.../article/135057
(Major costs that the Kindle eliminates include warehousing, shipping, shelving, and brick-and-mortar retailing.)
One possibility to keep in mind regarding textbook pricing is that in each field there would likely be a few authors who would do their own editorial work and ask for a low royalty, just for the sake of having their work have an impact on their field by being widely distributed–or because they are offended by high textbook prices. (I read a post a year or so ago by one such author.) The wedge these books would create would further enable Kindle books to establish attractive pricing of Kindle textbooks.
I agree that few people would buy a big Kindle just to read a paper, but there will eventually (in five years, say) be many people who would acquire one for another purpose and for whom reading the paper would be gravy. In addition, Apple’s new large-format iTouch (or whatever it’s called) could also be a paper-reader, if it adopted the Kindle format so that there wouldn’t be incompatible standards to kill the market.
Maybe the gooberment would encourage/fund adoption of e-book readers in high schools. That would help newspapers, indirectly, by building up a mass of potential e-book subscribers.
Erik Sherman over at bnet is calling you out on the this one..
http://industry...n-kindle-story/
I am no way related, just happened to see it my news feeds.
This is looks like a desperate attempt to re-tweak the old media business models hoping to make them function again.
The answer will not be found trying to salvage the old business models through clever gadgets, new forms of paper, new laws, lawsuits or pay-walls.
A lesson worth remembering is that at the turn of the 20th century, people had a transportation problem…and the solution turned out not to be a faster horse…but a Ford. And one should note that the Ford didn’t arise out of the “horse industry’s” R&D efforts, nor the “Horse Industry Stabilization Act” nor the horse industry’s attempts to experiment with new Business Models. I think the future of the media business will look as different as Ford and GM’s operations look from horse traders and blacksmiths.
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What’s historically given value to editorial content is the relative scarcity of distribution versus readers (not the Kindle kind). Newspapers have historically had natural localized economic monopolies coupled with a finite number of column inches with which to distribute news and ads. That natural monopoly meant that each paper had total control over the amount of content they allowed into their local marketplace.
Monopoly constraint of distribution and supply will always lead to prices (and profits) significantly above open market rates. These newspapers then built costly organizations commensurate with this stream of monopoly profits (think AT&T in the 1970’s).
The dynamics of content replication and distribution on the Internet destroys this artificial constraint of distribution and re-aligns ad (and subscription) prices back down to competitive open market rates. The often heard complaint of Internet ad revenue being “too low” is inverted…the real issue is that traditional ad rates have been artificially boosted for enough decades for participants to assume this represents the long-term norm.
Unfortunately the Internet came along and changed all the rules!
Any individual reader now has access to what is essentially an infinite amount of content on any given topic or story. All those silos of isolated editorial content have been dumped into the giant Internet bucket. Once there, any given piece of content can be infinitely replicated and re-distributed to thousands of sites at zero marginal costs. This breaks the back of old media’s monopoly control of distribution and supply.
The core problem for the newspapers is that in a world of infinite supply, the ability to monetize the value in any piece of editorial content, will be driven to zero…infinite supply pushes price levels to zero
This isn’t to imply that editorial content doesn’t have real value to most of its readers…it just means that no one source can marshal enough market power to effectively monetize the value of their content in the face of infinite supply and massively fragmented distribution.
There absolutely are answers to the question of how to create value with online news and to be able to monetize it…but I doubt that new kinds of paper will be any more successful than faster horses…
dale.harrison@inforda.com
The web is consolidating at the top end, and the media companies can take advantage of this. Those that consider themselves newspaper companies will decline, those that redefine their business as media companies will thrive.
I think all of these arguments are valid and compelling but they are all focused around content…namely text. I work in the Magazine industry and know how important images are to our readers–in some books, the ads and the spreads are as important or more important as the text (namely fashion, design, architecture). Any device that successfully replaces this type of magazine will need to provide the same quality of imagery without delay or hiccup…
it is not the problem with the newspapers being a day late and a dollar short…The problem is that the newspaper industry (and the MSM in general) LIE about almost every subject that they claim to know about. In the age of the Internet people are more information savvy- that is they can double check content in order to verify its accuracy. Since the MSM has been caught in a bunch of SERIOUS lies (Iraq readily comes to mind) people do not trust them anymore. That more than anything has caused the paper´s demise.
OH: “Trying to find the coin slot on a kindle”
Amazon is immune to recession, huge growth, market dominance. one of the best companies in existence. keep buying stocks http://iamned.com/blog/ Stop complaining about recession
I’m holding my breath for the product release … but looks jam packed full of promise.