DISQUS

Mindy McAdams · 2 years ago

Jason, did you ever read a newspaper? Was there any time in the past when you were a regular reader of, say, a Sunday paper or a weekly arts paper? Years ago I used to get the Sunday New York Times on my way home from work about 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Then I would go to sleep. When I woke up about noon I would have this luscious big gob of interesting stuff to wallow in while I drank coffee and celebrated the end of my work week. But now that's not my lifestyle. That's why I don't read the newspaper (the printed ones) anymore.

webomatica · 2 years ago

I was a subscriber to the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times for several years. Both slowly whittled away - We reduced it to even only the Sunday editions, but in the end, even that was too much. I actually felt guilty recycling these thick masses of paper, of the sections we never found the time read. I think it's been about two years since we had a newspaper subscription.

But guess what, pretty much daily, I'm checking out SFGate (The San Francisco Chronicle's website) and NYTimes online.

Thanks for reading and commenting, I apprecite it!

Scott Abel · 2 years ago

Good points. I agree, the newspaper industry must change. And, it is. Gannett is introducing user-generated news. Reuters is running an online news bureau on Second Life. And, increasingly, local papers are starting to develop web-based solutions.

The missing element is still personalization. Newspapers have a whole lot of content. In just one issue there are perhaps millions of words, most of which are not of interest to each individual reader. What's needed is the delivery of the right news, to the right readers, in the right language, at the right time, and in the right format (delivered to the right device). We've been doing this in the technical communication and content management spaces for some time now (with the help of structured XML authoring). It's time for newspapers to adopt this model. It will save them money in the long-run, prevent defections (folks unsubscribing), and make it even more -- much more -- attractive to advertisers who want to deliver ads with pin-point accuracy.

Thanks for introducing this interesting topic. I'm sure we'll hear more about this in the future.

Scott Abel
TheContentWrangler.com

Join Content Management Professionals today: www.cmpros.org

webomatica · 2 years ago

Hi Scott, I think you are totally right. I'd love to be able to load a personal version of the new york times that shows the topics I"m interested in.

I'm already playing around with feed readers and filtering out only certain stories (Cats for one).

darrenh · 2 years ago

So why aren't newspapers moving to the web faster? It's the money. Advertising revenue online is such a different game that paper publishers are not finding it easy to switch. And who can blame them? Most every newspaper is quite profitable. It is not easy to cast off a profitable product for a brave new world -- no matter how end-user friendly. Print advertising pays the bills of that news staff. Online revenue, for most dead tree publishers, isn't up to that yet, even if you don't have to print a product. But the reality of declining circulation is forcing the issue.

webomatica · 2 years ago

Certainly, the business is in transition. There must be a point in the future though, where the online audience suprasses the print audience and the advertising money has to follow the eyeballs.