Category Archives: newspapers

Reading the newspaper

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Read a great deal more newspapers (hard copy) over the Christmas holiday period than I would tend to on a day to day basis.  This week was back into reading them online – using the facilities of the relevant websites, browser software and various plugins to focus on what was of direct relevance.

I have commented previously on the social dimension of reading a physical newspaper in, say, family surrounds as against sitting at a laptop reading whatever. I’m struck more than ever by the difference.  Don’t get me wrong – online reading makes it so easy to forward anything of interest to another online contact or to add it to your library (I use zotero).  But, in the immediate community, it seems a lot less interesting and a lot less sociable.

I have also notice that the various online versions of the newspapers have been designed to be efficient, searchable, referenceable – but perhaps in striving for this have lost the feel/ charm of a newspaper.

Wonder how others feel.

Linked open data – the newspapers getting on board

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New York Times announced last week that it will provide data marked up using RDF (Resource Definition Framework).

Why is this important?

This makes the data more useful.  You can now cross reference/ correlate the NY Times information with other information available on the web e.g. DBPedia (The RDF format of Wikipedia).  You can also develop applications which can access/ process/ interpret the NY Times data – because it is provided in RDF format.

Interesting development – and makes sense of the Linked Open Data initiative.  The NY Times is embracing RDF – to some extent it is giving away its data, but on the other hand its own data is far more valuable because it can easily be combined with other (RDF’d) data.

Quite a challenge to all organisations – especially those generating significant content – who are failing to have their data leveraged properly because it sits in its own silo.

We do want newspapers

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I’ve been asking people why they like their newspaper:

  • I know the journalists – I follow their arguments.  I know their bias.
  • I can identify with the views offered
  • I like the weekend section – I read over the following week
  • I like the feel of the newspaper
  • I get a local perspective on international affairs
  • They call it as they see it

Lots of good reasons.

But the pressure continues for the industry.  I have commented previously on the impact of the web on newspapers – that they are too slow to be ‘news’.   However I would say, as a regular user of public transport, the smart phone/ blackberry/ ipod – have also hit them hard.  There was a time you wanted a paper hopping on a bus or tram.  Now you have full radio availability from your mobile phone.

Interesting piece by Howard Kurtz in today’s Washington Post. He references his frustration that the newspapers may have missed the boat, missed the opportunity to use the web intelligently to improve their offering, rather than kill it.

But going forward – what about the F generation (ie the facebook generation).  Will they ever look to newspapers the way we (the baby boomers) have seen them – informing us, setting much of the agenda, source of entertainment?  I don’t think so.

Will the missing advertising revenues ever return?  Many of the newspapers have reengineering their processes, have removed lots of costs, have invested significantly in their web presence, have used the web to assist in producing their papers.

Tend to agree with Mr Kurtz.  There is no one model.  There will be opportunities – because of the reasons people like newspapers.  But organisations will need to be nimble, flexible and continue to evolve their models.  as I have said before quality journalism must have a future – society needs it.  But how it will be organisaed and how people will profit from it…to be worked out.

challenges for newspaper industry

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In my recent post I commented on my ongoing experience of reading the news online (http://www.bluereek.com/2009/03/reading-the-news-online/).  Broadly it’s positive todate.

As in any economic downturn the newspaper industry is being hard hit by significant drops in advertising revenue.  However there is a wider debate taking place about the future of newspapers – free papers, local papers, online news services.  Yesterday’s FT article, ‘When newspapers fold’ brings much of this together in one place.

I do not think there is any doubt that we continue, for now,  to need a vibrant, stimulating, well informed newspaper industry.  Obviously the web has changed things – in terms of work methods, speed of dissemination of information (e.g. twitter), availability of video, podcasts, etc.  And newspapers have not been slow to engage with the technology – providing current news feeds, quality web sites, personalised feeds, etc.

The challenge though now is how to build out a business which leverages these options/opportunities/ risks – providing a quality product, employment for news producers/ analysts and a reasonable return for the investor.   The industry seems to have flipped from charging for its online offerings to giving them away back to charging again. I do not think ‘news’ per se will command much in terms of income – there are too many ways for news to get around the world (as evidenced by the growth in mobile phones).  Indepth analysis, commentary, a particular slant/view – people may pay for this.  But is it a case of turning newspapers into magazines – where the timeliness is not as important?

Blogs such as this one are of little threat to the newspaper industry.  But as the semantic web advances we will begin to see the web providing a platform whereby individual users can gather all they are interested in through a portal.  www.twine.com provides an early insight.  But this is a long way short of what will be delivered – with each of us using a range of ‘agents’ to track/analyse/ present news/ research/ entertainment of interest to us.

Interesting times.  Newspapers who have great editors, journalists, photographers, researchers, producers must have a good future, if they can figure out the business model.  But everything goes into the melting pot.