I can’t help but think of the REM song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” while writing this post. It won’t be the last posting or article that touts the beginning of the end for the print media industry. Trees everywhere are rejoicing in the fact that their brethren will soon be safe from the newsroom presses.
The recession has hastened this demise as advertisers pull back from all sorts of traditional printed advertisements in favor of digital formats. It is as if media buyers had a Gilligan’s Island moment when a coconut fell on their head and they suddenly realized the lack of effectiveness of print media. Junk mail volume is down (yeah) but so are advertisements in newspapers and magazines.
Now I am not bashing online business models, I think they are valuable. I am also not bashing the move to digital media, this is an important evolutionary step that will make the media industry better in the long haul. What I am pointing out, however, is that there is a missing link for the convenient consumption of the written word that makes it convenient to receive and read.
I pointed out to the editors of PC Magazine that I typically read their magazine cover-to-cover while in bed at the end of the day. I tried the Zino reader on my notebook in January when they switched to all digital delivery and made it half-way through. I haven’t read a word of any issues since.
The missing link is a decent wireless device and interface that makes it easier to consume the written word. This may be the long awaited “ebook” but even this category has a lot of groundwork to cover in order to be the replacement of the printed newspaper or magazine. Amazon.com has certainly injected excitement into this category with its Kindle product. It is a nice ebook reader that is bundled with wireless networking provided by Sprint. It allows subscribers to purchase books on-line and have them automatically downloaded to their device, many times within seconds.
The downside is that it has a steep startup cost ($360) that puts the device out of range for most readers. (Hey Jeff B – if you are reading, I’d love to review one…) Reviews also indicate that the interface is also not there for magazine reading. (For one thing, no color.)
Magazines and newspapers also need to rethink the way that they deliver content. Zinio does a great job of recreating the page turn of a magazine on the PC, but if you don’t have a page to turn, do you really need that experience? I don’t think the typical web experience is what we need either. There is a certain comfort with well organized sections that are visually navigable. (Hmmm, maybe the iPhone interface can help out here?)
Wireless push delivery is also a great idea here. Not having to wait for content to download allows the e-Media reader to be read offline. This is helpful when you have poor coverage or on a plane where you have no coverage.
Industry players are starting to circle around this space and I expect to see a lot of advancement. Amazon just purchased Lexcyle, an iPhone e-book reader application in addition to developing on their own Kindle for iPhone application. I had a great conversation with Zinio who was in the Qualcomm booth at CTIA. Apple is rumored to be working on a Media Pad (product design team, please read my post on Star Trek getting it right!) which could be a Kindle killer.
I guess that REM song was the right one for this post. “It’s the end of the world as we know it… but I feel fine.”
