Guardian columnist
Jeff Jarvis caused quite a stir with his "iPod moment"
for newspapers, with reaction rippling across the blogoscape – see here
and here
for a few examples.
What moment? For music it was when the iPod steamrollered
through the music industry making downloading the norm and buying a physical
disc just a nice thing to do, sometimes. Video iPods put the gadget on course
to displace TV – yeah right – and now the Jobs wagon train has lined up
newspapers.
Quoting Dilbert cartoonist
Scott Adams' note that "When you have a web browser in your pocket, a
printed newspaper is redundant," Jarvis looks to the latest iPod's WiFi
ability to browse the web as literally the killer app for print.
He bemoans the newspaper
industry's inability to reinvent itself in any other form that replicating the
format digitally.
Adams reckons printed
newspapers will be looking over the cliff of extinction "in the time
it takes for most people to upgrade their cell phones two more times".
But, he concedes, "Most people prefer to read a printed
page versus a computer screen".
And there's the rub. If there was one form of print destined
to destitution, it should be printed news. The phrase "today's news is
tomorrow's chip paper" has always been true. But people still buy
"the papers".
And while online audiences for news have rocketed, print
circulations have declined relatively little. The FT actually grew its print
circulation in September,
and the explosion in free sheets such as The
Metro has been well-recorded.
Which I guess boils down to this: where people perceive
lasting value in information, they want it in print.
If you don’t believe me, you should have tried getting hold
of a copy of Gazzetta dello Sport
last year when Italy took the World Cup last year.
And if you're still sceptical, don't take my word for it.
Try The Friday Project, which
has the sales and distribution muscle of Pan Macmillan and is tasked with
turning successful blogs into books. Or
blooks, as on-demand publisher LuLu calls them. And yes, they are successful.
So much so that popular authors can win the Blooker Prize.
And you know what? The newspaper industry has been innovative in adding this
value. Just look at the way the likes of Johnston Press over here and the
Chicago Tribune in the US have jumped on 'hyperlocal' – the greater relevance
of postcode local news to its audience, with hyperlocal websites engendering
printed versions.
Just look at MAN Roland and Kodak introducing VDP into
newspaper presses, so that newspapers can be personalised at full press speed.
Can your iPod do that?