The digital age has brought the death of many older industries and technologies as constant progress has brought about new methods, processes, products, etc. Perhaps one of the most publicly known and widely talked about issues regarding dying industries is that of the newspaper industry. While some will argue that newspapers aren’t dying (right), or that there is nothing wrong with the industry itself and it is merely going through a period of increased “leaching” by smaller news outlets and blogs, the newspaper industry as a whole isn’t doing so hot.
Of course, in the day and age of finger pointing and no one being able to take the blame for their own personal screw ups, it seems only natural to shove the blame off to other entities — precisely what many news outlets are doing. Anything and everything from blaming Google, news aggregators, to technology and electronics as a whole hasn’t esacped the newspapers industry assault on modern technology. However, there is at least one news organization that “gets it”, this digital revolution. That organization is NPR. A perfect example of how an old industry is molding into anew is briliantly illustrated with their new NPR iPhone app.
(Video of the app in action and more after the jump)
Various newspaper companies and publishers have been racking their ink stained brains for months on end trying to find a way to regain lost profits and income. In recent times, advertising income has sank, (newspapers main source of money) meaning that these publishers are having to look for new sources. Unfortunately, instead of downsizing their overbloated companies with god awful antiquated business practices, they choose to conjour up ridiculous and completely incompitent band-aid fixes for an amputated limb type of problem. What exactly is there super great idea?!
I’m sure many of you get your daily dose of news from some form of digital means, eschewing the now archaic and grossly inefficient paper based model. Why spend countless minutes searching through pages of slaughtered trees when you can have an unlimited amount of papers available to you online, at your finger tips? So is the way of the world. Unfortunately, as more readers move online, ad revenue from traditional paper papers continues to fall meaning the publishers have to find new methods of making money. Sadly, it has taken the form of ad after ad and the continual downsizing of actual content per page. While I whole heartedly support ad usage, having more ads than worthwhile content isn’t a very good business model to attract readers and entice them to open up their wallets. The picture above comes compliments of Microsoft program manager Dare Obasanjo and shows just how much online journalism has changed in a few short years, albeit with an obvious twist of humor thrown in. Still, it is very clear the problems that online journalism still face in that they are clearly outside of their comfort zone and have no idea what they are doing. Ahhh, ’tis nice to reminisce.
Source: Alley Insider
Take a look at the current newspaper industry. What do you see? A tanking and resistant to change industry that is desperately grabbing in the air for a solution to starve off their dwindling cash flows. They have figured out first hand that no one no matter the size is safe from the economic downturn. In order to remedy the bleeding of money, the most widely successful online paid media outlet, the WSJ, has announced plans for an in house charging scheme dubbed “micro-paymets”, or pay-per-article content. Who would pay for a single article. Will it be cheaper than an entire paper? Is there even a market for such a service? All that and even a little more is right inside.
