Monday, October 6, 2008

Future of newspapers in regard to the web

The biggest barrier keeping online newspapers from taking over, and making physical newspapers obsolete, is portability and readability. In all other categories; immediacy, distribution, sharing, updatability, and accessibility to publishers, online news agencies are far superior to their traditional counterparts. Wireless reading devices such as the "Kindle", introduced by Amazon.com last year, seek to combat the aforementioned issues of portability and readability.
While the current price tag of $359.00 is still too steep for most, this is in my estimation only a temporary problem. As the price of this product comes down, it will cause more people to consider canceling their traditional newspaper subscriptions and switching to wireless reading devices such as the "Kindle".
As we discussed in class this morning, traditional newspaper subscription levels have fallen along with the rise of the worldwide web. Advertisers, who have traditionally reached their audiences through physical newspapers, will need to start reallocating some of their budgets from print to online news sources as this transition continues.
While good journalists will always have jobs, they will increasing need to tailor their delivery to better utilize the intricacies of the internet. Hopefully, this will lead to a more well rounded presentation of issues, that allows increased levels of interactivity from readers.

1 comment:

Jay said...

The first time I saw the kindle on the Amazon site, I thought it was a great idea. The price will definitely drop, especially during Christmas time; I'm expecting it to sell like hot cakes. It's good that the newspapers have already jumped into the kindle, I think they're slowly progressing to the mainstream platforms.