Philadelphia Daily News: Further Proof Print Media is Out of Touch
Print media is reeling, no question about it. Newspapers are closing all over the U.S. and many print publications have been shut down to go online only. I feel bad for those in the industry, but many will tell you that print media has had their collective heads in the sand for a long time while the online world has grown tremendously. A reader sent me this article from a blog of the Philadelphia Daily News that demonstrates how out of touch with the real world these folks are even today. The author is pushing the idea that newspapers should give readers free netbooks to instill loyalty, thus keeping them alive. I find the premise pretty funny in general, but what caught my eye is the picture in the article that proves how out in left field these folks are:
Yep, that netbook he’s advocating giving their loyal readers is none other than the only trademarked netbook, the Psion netBook. Someone better tell this guy it is almost 10-year-old technology. :)
(Thanks to Scott Carmichael for sending this in!)
I don’t know… Refresh the Psion Netbook design with a more up to date component set and it would be at the top of my list of devices.
Psion were one of the few companies to think outside the box when it comes to physical arrangement of the keyboard/(touch)screen.
As my local paper (Detroit Free Press) has dropped home delivery down from seven to three days, they should think very hard about supplying netbooks/ebooks/etc to their subscribers free or at a deep discount to access their online version. Otherwise, they are going to loose even more subscribers – like me – who like a portable news service to read over breakfast.
Give the tools to see how vast the big wide web is and likely your audience spends less time with your content anywhere. Kind of like cell carriers giving free netbooks away to get you to use more data minutes. FIrst thing you discover is VoIP.
Very very sad, but ultimately it’s evolve or die out there! I can only wonder if the fella who wrote the article was wearing a green eyeshade and an armclip …
I like the Hearst Media Inc. idea of giving out a kindle type device for newspapers and magzines.
As for the Psion NEtbook. I wish it would sync with vista/windows 7
One journalist/blogger uses the wrong photo in a blog post, and you call that “evidence” of how far these guys are in the left field and how out of touch the print media is? Come on! Is this a slow “news” day at Mobile Tech Manor? If this blog post is indicative of the future of our media, I am really not looking forward towards the future.
Did you read his article? I did and the proposal to give readers a netbook to instill a feeling of community so they’ll also buy your print newspaper is pretty much out in left field in my book.
Print media doesn’t know how to counter the fact that news, all news all the time, is out there all over the web for free. Giving netbooks away, even great ones, won’t change that.
Yes, the article is out in left field. Indicates a lazy non-thinking “journalist.” Those presumed characteristics could have led him to delegate the picture: “Editor: insert picture of netbook here.”
(Idea from the great Dave Barry column about Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” where Barry wrote: “[Editor: Insert Grand Unification Theory here.]“. The column ended with Barry saying, “I gotta go now, I can see from the clock on my VCR that it’s now 00:00:00.”)
JK, no, I didn’t read the article, I skimmed it. And I don’t disagree with you that giving out netbooks isn’t going to save the newspapers. But that wasn’t my point. I find it sad that you got so hung up on them using the wrong photo. Your blog post didn’t discuss why their suggestion to hand out netbooks is a bad idea, you just hammer them for not knowing that the Psion Netbook isn’t a netbook.
Find the blog of Clay Shirky and read his article on the demise of print media. It says a lot about technology and is very correct.
Hmmmmm… Wasn’t there some brouhaha over using the term “netbook” on sites? Weren’t some orgs getting C&D letters from laywers representing Psion?
I suppose I’m wondering if it’s possible they’re using the picture in order to hold off any chance of Psion’s TM lawyers coming after them?
I think it’s much more likely that he or someone else at the newspaper hit their stock photo library, or their own archives. Either way, it’s probably >1yr old, so the only thing that’d come up on a search for “netbook” would be an image from Psion…
Rather than a netbook, maybe newspapers should subsidize a Kindle? Deliver the paper, as it would be printed, everyday with advertising — particularly local and regional.
The national advertising model for the web doesn’t work well for newspapers, especially local/regionals. The Kindle’s capabilities (portability, long battery life, Whisper Sync) can durably present and amplify adverts for local/regional businesses in ways that could never happen with what has become the traditional online versions of newspapers. Plus the Kindle might encourage spontaneous purchases (ala the cell phone apps model) in ways that netbooks, laptops and desktops cannot. (FYI, my eye and brain have trained one another to ignore online advertising — something they’ve never accomplished with print media.)
As a package deal at $15 per month, I would subscribe to my local paper, Lander (Wyoming) Journal, the regional paper (Casper Star Tribune) and the NY Times. Plus, I could get the RSS feed for JKontheRun.
What a great newspaper. Just last week I joined their contest to win a hot new gaming system: An Atari 2600!
I hope I win!
I think the Philadelphia Daily News blog article could have been more clearly written, but I also think it is being misinterpreted here a bit. Reading through the article, I think the reporter is mainly proposing that the newspaper should initiate (or at least participate in) an OLPC-style charitable program focused on providing lower-income families within the community with some basic computing and, particularly, online capabilities.
The suggestion seems to be that this could help bolster the newspaper’s image within the community while also enlarging its potential audience as they make the now pretty much inevitable transition from a print newspaper to primarily digital distribution. Considering that donated netbooks would primarily be going to individuals very inexperienced with computers (and, thus, unlikely to quickly change from default configuration), even the simple act of making the newspaper’s website the default homepage on the installed web browser could help them to establish readership within that audience.
I admit that I have some doubts about the practicality of this kind of plan or whether or not it would really generate much of a financial return for the newspaper, but I do think the underlying concept has merit. If the existing print media is going to figure out a way to survive, they absolutely are going to have to find a way to embrace current technology and try to figure out a way to migrate their audience. Getting more people online, particularly those who are currently still apt to be at least occasional readers of print newspapers, certainly has the potential to help.
As for the user of the Psion, I think that is almost certainly a case of someone doing a search through a stock-image library and grabbing an old publicity shot. While it is kind of funny to those familiar with the product, I do think it looks enough like the more modern netbooks that it really doesn’t hurt as an illustration to the article.