Posted on 11/26/2007 7:41:00 AM PST by Milhous
There’ll always be paper boxes. But the hand writing is on the screen when it comes to content:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000FI73MA/ref=pd_sl_aw_manual-1_kindle1_40650458_1
Although Acrobat also leaves me with mixed emotions it does a fair job of creating content on-the-fly by appending pertinent pages whenever a reader clicks on an interesting embedded link. You end up with a unique magazine tailored to your individual taste.
What this means is paper books will become more readily available at used book sales. Even now, encyclopedias are usually given away at such sales.
Did you know that in addition to its odd pay-per-blog scheme, Amazon's Kindle also offers readers a chance to pay to read online newspapers? We haven't spent time talking about it, because it's so clearly a non-starter.
But for the record: If you want to read the New York Times on your Kindle, you can pay $14 a month for a subscription -- or you can read it for free, using the Kindle's built-in web browser and all-you-can-eat wireless access. (Other papers like the Wall Street Journal, le Monde, etc, are also available at different but equally preposterous price points.)
The only real riddle here is why Amazon even bothered to launch the Kindle with this offering -- we imagine it's because they structured some of these deals a couple of years ago, when publications like the Times were still trying to sell online subscriptions. Perhaps the contracts compelled Amazon to offer them in late 2007, even though it's clear that paid subscriptions for Web content isn't going to work.
Anyway. The existence of the plan has gulled at least one blogger, MediaNation's Dan Kennedy, into imagining that the Kindle will help save the newspaper industry. Why? Because it offers readers the chance to pay to read, which may "offer a possible alternative to the free, Web-based regime that has been such a boon to consumers and a bane to publishers." In the spirit of the holidays, we're going to leave it that.
Update: We had a pang of regret after publishing this -- what if users who paid for the NYT on Kindle actually got something of value, like a layout that was easier on the eyes than the free web version? We resolved to find out for ourselves, and after a bit of trouble (our Kindle had already quit on us) we ordered an NYT subscription.
We are happy/disappointed to report that the paid NYT version is worse than the free one: The layout is just as clumsy as the web browser version, if not more so. The real problem: Since the paid version is automatically beamed to your reader once a day, you are guaranteed to be reading yesterday's... non-news. If you'd like to see what's actually happening in the world, the Kindle insists that you leave your paid subscription -- and check out the free version at nyt.com.
Related: The Tortured Logic Behind Amazon's Blog Scheme
Newspaper Ads Tank Again, Industry Shrinking Fast
A lot of things will be tried and a lot of things will fail but the trend is unmistakable. Going to be facinating to watch.
Even Plum TV as reported by the NY Post is failing.
“of course he is lying......it ain’t costs killing the rags...it’s content”
Content is the killer for the fishwraps in this household and most of our relatives.
the tv is next............could you imagine a Jim Robinson tv channel to watch............or Free Republic w/ interactive speech instead of typing ???
this is the beginning
“the tv is next............could you imagine a Jim Robinson tv channel to watch............or Free Republic w/ interactive speech instead of typing ???
this is the beginning”
As Abb has pointed out, PRAVDABCNNBCBS after the 2008 elections will start to really fold up. Their evening news will disappear. There will be morning chit chat with a little news at the bottom of the screen with a little Global Warming weather.
We will be deluged with reality shows and quiz shows showing how dumb the average American is.
Creativity will gone and tv shows will be countless spinoffs of previous failures.
One of my younger relatives has been developing speech recoginition for use with computers, cell phones and other devices for years. What you ask for re no typing could be available very soon.
and the best part.we win.......Suck it Brokaw
Being a past glory mediot or a current mediot in today’s MSM has to be very depressing.
Their decades of controlling America and the rest of the world with their lies, spins and PCism are crashing down at an increasing rate.
A younger all most 50 year old friend left this sad game 15 years ago. Her husband, another mediot, became a total druggie and they got divorced. She was told by her doctor if she didn’t give up alcohol, she would be lucky to live to be 40.
She has turned her life around and still knows a lot of West and East Coast mediots at all levels. She hasn’t talked to a happy one since Blather and Mapes got exposed.
The MSM economic situation is dire and gets worse each week at all of the fishwraps and most of PRAVDABCNNBCBS. The mediots still with a paycheck are lied to daily and weekly by their elite lefty owners. They all expect to be laid off or fired. Most if not all have no real transferrable skills. Their only hope is get a paycheck from some liberal pseudo non profit if they get fired from their current paycheck.
ain’t the market place great
Maybe junk mail will decline...but I doubt it.
Thanks for the ping
Isn’t paper made of carbon? Let’s make them buy carbon credits, too!
If you’re interested in a different reader program, try Microsoft Reader. It’s completely free, you can convert documents to it free, you can bookmark pages and change font sizes, and you can have the document read to you with any one of several voice formats (built-in Microsoft voices, or AT&T’s). I haven’t tried it lately and plan to check out the latest version. It’s pretty cool.
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/pc.mspx
Not to pile on, but I think the article is talking about magazines like Time, Newsweak, etc.
The market place is great.
It knows when an old product is ready to be replaced.
It knows when a new product is junk.
It knows that liberal radio talk shows can’t make it on its on.
Now we know it knows that the MSM is in trouble with real competition.
You aren’t piling on. The article is vague. If it is about magazines they are in real trouble, and rising costs of slick color capable pages will hurt them.
LOL!!
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