More Web 2.0 Newspaper Musings

October 24th, 2006

Technology Here are more thoughts as to the eventual fate of struggling newspapers. Mark Evans has some ideas that he calles the Five “W”s. His questions: “What must newspapers do?” and “Where is the newspaper industry going?” are the ones most up in the air.

I thought I would post some thoughts on these questions from my point of view as a “user” or a former reader of newspapers. I cancelled my subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle a few years ago after a time of getting only the Sunday edition. Presently, I get news on current events through the internet and podcasts (namely the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, and ABC News Nightline). I sometimes listen to streaming news on the computer (BBC). Even television has been eliminated.

So what are my reasons for moving in this direction? Largely, convenience.

More and more I want content in a format I’m used to digesting it in, and I want it as soon as the impulse strikes. The first thing that strikes me when I pick up a newspaper is how inconvenient the entire format is. It’s unwieldy. I see an article on the front page, and instead of clicking on a link to start reading it immediately, I actually have to dig around through oversized pages to find it. Advertising is overwhelming. Practically half of the bulk of a Sunday edition is ads that I don’t want to read that go straight to the recycling bin. It strikes me as terribly wasteful. The last big annoyance is how the vast majority of newspaper articles are from wire services, and therefore exactly the same as any other paper, and something I’ve already seen online. All of these stories are essentially useless. They do not add value to a print newspaper; frankly they do the opposite.

I think part of the reason for so many wire services is because newspapers are still used to the idea that they are the only source of news for any reader, so they feel they have to offer an article of every variety to look like they are giving complete coverage. Meanwhile, on the internet, I can bounce around between twenty different old media websites and read different takes on the same event. Why would I want to slog through copies of stories in twenty “different” newspapers just to find the gems?

Yet based on my half-baked one-user survey, it’s not all bleak. I still want to read actual content and actual reporting, from writers regarding important stories. It’s just that the traditional vehicles most content creators are used to distributing through are falling apart. It could just be the difference between a reporter saying “I’m a newspaper writer” and “I’m a news writer.” Get the old media concept of putting everything on a dead tree out of the way. But you have to look on the disruptive change as an opportunity and a challenge rather than a problem to be swept under the rug.

Look at Tower Records going out of business. But then look at the iPod and Steve Jobs walking all the way to the bank. The music is exactly the same at both places (and technically, the sound quality of an MP3 is inferior). Yet based on convenience alone, I’m hooked on the iPod and haven’t bought a CD in several years.

I still want to read what reporters and writers have to say. It’s just the delivery of the message that’s imploding. Allow me to mix and match stories. Allow me to comment on articles. Allow me to choose what stories you write about and what appears on the first page. Allow me to combine feeds in different ways, so I can fire up my browser and see an editorial from the NYTimes, the comics I want, the headlines from some bloggers, and some video feeds from CNN.

Lastly, I’m still hopeful the newspapers will figure this out. Otherwise, my “newspaper” of the future is more likely to just be a customized Google homepage.

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