Ryan Sholin wrote this post “10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get through your head” on June 2 about the future of newspapers. It ended up on the front page of TechMeme and obviously struck a chord with lots of people. So I invited him onto the show to explore his key points in some more detail.
Ryan is a graduate student in Mass Communications at San Jose State University, working on a thesis about the adoption of weblogs at U.S. newspapers and he works at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
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Hey Cam, just saw this on the BBC website;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6748103.stm
It’s a good list. It’s also pretty much what I see newspapers doing hereabouts …
Except for the archives! But I agree that the locals seems to be trying. As I said at the end of the show though, I still can’t see how they will be able to maintain revenues for much longer as their audience melts away.
About your ‘digital paper’ point, I think we still have a long way to go. I know many ‘with-it’ people do, but I can’t imagine people reading news from their computers, mobiles, e-readers anytime soon. People read newspapers usually while doing something else not in front of the computer (e.g. travelling, eating breakfast). Mobiles and e-readers? The screen’s way too small, and the constant scrolling is bloody annoying – it’s like having 50 words per page on a newspaper. Yet we don’t want to carry something around – the beauty of the newspaper is that it’s disposable.
The biggest issue I have with digital media though is that everything is a template. Every article simply has the text shoved in to where the website designer specified, with the major pic at the top right, and the rest of the media linked to at the bottom. There’s no grouping of related articles together like you get in a print paper (or if there is, it’s all on separate pages and you simply cbf opening them all). There’s no thought-out layout of pictures and other media with the article.
The reason for this is because that’s how the web has always worked. But just because that’s how it worked, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate, and in this case I don’t think it is. Rather than just typing the article in, adding some media and clicking the publish button, they need a person in charge of laying out the page and putting related articles together, just as there is in the print version. For example, if there was a new scandal unfolding, many newspapers have a timeline running on the edge of a section of articles dedicated to the scandal. Some cool AJAX probably needs to be used to fit everything in on screen, but at least it’s all there, just like it is when I read a print paper.
I’m sure you’ve seen the NYT Reader app – that’s a start, but not far enough.
Oh, a bonus point – I wish RSS readers allow you to skim feed items not only by their title, but also a pic as well, just as I can skim through articles in my paper by looking at the picture as well as the title. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
“There’s no grouping of related articles together like you get in a print paper”…. Sam, open up Netvibes or iGoogle. You can have hundreds of stories grouped together however you choose. Build your own templates to suit you!
“I can skim through articles in my paper by looking at the picture as well as the title”…. well hell mate, why bother even reading?! Let’s just take out the words! 🙂
I think digital paper, when we get it, will be brilliant. It will play video, audio and have text. It’ll fold up into your pocket or briefcase or handbag. It will be lightweight.
But it isn’t here yet.
Before we get there, we might get to wearable computers. That would actually be my preference. Goggles or lenses which beam the net onto your retina. You navigate by a combination of blinks and hand gestures, Minority Report style.
“Sam, open up Netvibes or iGoogle. You can have hundreds of stories grouped together however you choose. Build your own templates to suit you!”
They look the same day in, day out. I want the newspapers to do the layout for me, make it look pretty, different and appropriate for each set of related articles. Imagine if your print newspaper now just had an article on each page, pictures at top and bottom, no eye-catching front page. I guess what I want is a daily newspaper done with the design effort that goes into digital magazines, complete with embedded audio, video, pictures, 3D walk throughs, everything.
“well hell mate, why bother even reading?! Let’s just take out the words! ”
Sorry, I forgot to add that the idea was that the pictures could attract my attention to the article, rather than just the item title, as we have now in feed readers. If the pic and/or title look interesting, I’ll read the article.
“Goggles or lenses which beam the net onto your retina. You navigate by a combination of blinks and hand gestures, Minority Report style.”
I could just imagine it now, people walking down the street, wildly waving their hands around, absorbed in their own world while everyone else stares. Or worse, people try doing it on a packed train. Hang on, we’ll all be on Second Life by then right 😉