1st of 5 Reasons why printed media will evolve

Note: This is the first part of my week-long series of posting 5 reasons why I think the printed media will have to evolve and what I think it should evolve to. The steps will be posted daily starting with this on a Monday, and ending on this week’s Friday.

As I mentioned in my post (eBooks, Kindle and the iPhone), I haven’t subscribed magazines or newspapers for years. The reason is of course related to my mission of reducing the use of paper as much as I can, but there are other reasons as well and I think they will affect the whole publishing industry in some way in the near future – and it actually has already started to happen.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer decided to pull the plug on their dead-tree publication and go all online, Wired wrote an article of it which said:

Some 140 people will be laid off, the competing Seattle Times reported, as only 20 to 25 employees will be needed to operate the surviving website. The two papers had been working under a “joint operating agreement” — sharing all production, distribution and marketing resources, but with separate news divisions — since 1983. The P-I began its life in 1863.

Not only is the manpower required to run the online version  1/8th of the whole operation, now they can get more up-to-date news from local influencers through tens of local blogs.

But, the first of 5 reasons why I think the printed media will have to evolve, up next:

1. Time is of the essence

It could be him.

Before there were letters, carrier pigeons and telegrams, newspapers were (and still are) mainly local and information delivery was very slow. So slow, that you could rob a bank in the next state and by the time they knew about it in the adjacent state, you had already robbed that one and moved to Florida to spend your pension.

Then came telex and faxes and telephones and suddenly information could be delivered in days instead of weeks – just as long the receiving end was still at the office to pick up the phone call or read the fax and put it to the only medium that a lot of people read – the newspaper. The coming of e-mail didn’t much change this, as the penetration was small and people still couldn’t effectively share information to large groups of people (yeah, messaging boards were not that popular.)

But then came the Internet, the liberator of information. Suddenly people were posting local information in their own web page and it could be seen by anyone, anywhere at any time. Now people could see the information at the same time the journalists heard of the thing. It’s not very Peter Parker anymore, having a reporter be on location when everyone in the friggin’ scene has a mobile with a camera and e-mail. I’m not even going to go to Twitter and Twitscoops and everything that makes information even more NOW that it previously was.

So, if you have already read the news today, why would you want to read the same syndicated information clip tomorrow morning, day or afternoon? More so, who are willing to pay for it? Didn’t think so.

1802 Newspaper Announcements

For a long time, newspapers had it easy just copy-pasting syndicated news to fill the blank spaces between their advertisements. Not so easy anymore, as people have already read it. So, what to do, how will the newspapers cope with this?

Do good content. Have insights. Explain what is going on around or inside the stories. The exact same reasons some blogs are worth reading more than others, usually the better ones have something exclusive and informational to say – that has relevance.

I could see myself reading a magazine that would deepen my knowledge and give a different point of view to the subject at hand, something I think magazines like Fast Company and Wired manage to do – but then again, they are the newcomers and understand the playing field.

Or do they?

Do you subscribe to newspapers anymore or do you read your news online?

The second part titled “Advertising dollars are spent elsewhere” will be posted tomorrow.

Related posts:

1. 5th of 5 Reasons why printed media will evolve
2. 4th of 5 Reasons why printed media will evolve
3. 2nd of 5 Reasons why printed media will evolve
4. 3rd of 5 Reasons why printed media will evolve
5. eBooks, Kindle and the iPhone