Posted on 01/07/2006 1:27:01 AM PST by Lorianne
Bill Gates says that in technology things that are supposed to happen in less than five years usually take longer than expected, while things that are supposed to happen in more than 10 years usually come sooner than expected. Ten years ago, when I went to work for Microsoft, the newspaper industry was in a panic over something called Sidewalka now-forgotten Microsoft project to create Web site entertainment guides for a couple dozen big cities. Newspapers were convinced that Microsoft could and would put them out of business by stealing their ad base. It didn't happen. The collapse of the Internet bubble did happen. And, until very recently, the newspapers got complacent. Some developed good Web sites, some didn't, but most stopped thinking of the Web as an imminent danger.
Ten years later, newspapers are starting to panic again. But merely slobbering after bloggers may not be enough. In 1996, the oldest Americans who grew up with computers and don't even understand my tiresome anecdotes about how people used to resist them ("What's a typewriter, Mike?") were just entering adulthood. Now they are most of the working population, or close to it.
The trouble even an established customer will take to obtain a newspaper continues to shrink, as well. Once, I would drive across town if necessary. Today, I open the front door and if the paper isn't within about 10 feet I retreat to my computer and read it online. Only six months ago, that figure was 20 feet. Extrapolating, they will have to bring it to me in bed by the end of the year and read it to me out loud by the second quarter of 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Hey, is that my letter to the editor in the upper right hand corner?
Kind of sad. My ex just got a job at a newspaper. I'm not being funny. We're still good friends.
Bill Gates also once said that 64K was all the memory a user would need on a computer. (maybe it was 640K and I remembered incorrectly)
If MK got paid for this article he should refund the difference betweeen word count and value.
Thanks to the "pass them at any cost" philosopy of school administrators, many of our kids simply can't read!
This does not bode well for the future of the NY Times or any other of the mainstream papers.
IMHO, all of that is helping to push newspapers aside, but I think the main reason is poor and or Liberal slanted reporting. Folks are starting to catch on that the major newspapers have a staunch Liberal agenda.
Are leftists still printing on old growth paper?
According to the latest census figures, only slightly more than half of U.S. households have a computer. I take this to mean that if the remaining households are interested in news, the only choices are newspapers, television or radio.
In my opinion, newspapers will always be with us. For years, my morning ritual is to read the morning newspaper over coffee and cigarettes, lingering on the box scores, crossword and local classifieds (Craigslist only lists 75 or 100 cities...obviously excluding practically all of smalltown America). I also read the obituaries, legal notices and comics.
I could give a rat's ass what Bill Gates or any writer from Slate postulates. The newspaper has been a primary information delivery system since the early days of the U.S. and will continue to be. The downsizing is only evidence that the large media companies are learning to operate more efficiently.
As soon as I read this headline about the 'future of newspapers', I was immediately reminded of this exchange in Kill Bill 2.
Elle - "That's right. I killed your master. And now I'm gonna kill you, with your own sword, no less, which in the very immediate future, will become ... my sword."
Beatrix - "B!%@#, ... you don't have a future."
Check out the pledge picture at the beginning of the thread.
;-)
That is a keeper.
It was the image of Brit Hume, CBS, Free Republic, and the forged documents with "credit where credit is due" under it.
Sorry............. but I think I remember that great picture came about because of one of your emails to Fox.
My local fishwrapper carries stale news and liberal commentary. I stopped subscribing a long time ago and I do contribute some of the money I have saved to Free Republic.
I spoke to a young woman a few years back - before the bloggers came into their own - and asked why she didn't subscribe to a newspaper. This twenty-something's response was telling. She didn't subscribe because of guilt over throwing away that much paper (the environmentalist got to her in college), too much stuff she didn't want to read and the reality of the large quantity of garbage that had to be hauled out. Based on this sample of one, papers need to print smaller papers geared to specific age groups. A short "digest" of other age's groups news would be plenty...
LOL!!
Can you put "FreeRepublic" on the wing of that buzzard?
... Based on this sample of one, papers need to print smaller papers geared to specific age groups. A short "digest" of other age's groups news would be plenty... (This is one suggestion of about 300 I [and other bloggers] could come up with...)
Try doing THAT with a blog!
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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