We all know there is more than enough news going around about the slow but steadily approaching death of traditional newspapers and publishing. Unfortunately while the papers such as the New York Times have more readers than ever – largely online – this new technologically adept audience is not translating to profits. The model for generating revenue online simply hasn’t managed to catch up to print.
This week’s announcement by Apple regarding it’s iPhone 3.0 software offers a hidden glimpse into a different future where perhaps the online model will work for publishes better than we thought. The iPhone 3.0 release will bring more models of payment such as subscriptions, and pay as you go (per article?) setups. It’s really as flexible as the developer or provider wants.
Though the larger shift is the move towards devices. With the device, there seems to be an expectation that we should pay for content formatted specially to it, as opposed to the web where we want everything for free. The iPhone offered the first real device that people could carry with them and comfortably use the internet. But a year ago we saw that customers were also willing to pay extra for applications that delivered things like news, media, and other information to their device in a way that’s formatted preferably for the device. Generally these apps also provide special functionality. The Kindle is another example of a device that’s specially formatted for reading, and again, people are willing to pay to get content delivered to it.
It’s early trends like these that lead me to believe that while it’s not coming tomorrow, very soon more people will get their news and media content via devices such as smart phones, tablet devices, or reading devices. This will lead to a profit generating model that could bring new life to publishing, news media, and others. For any of these companies, an application or delivery for the device will always be attractive to customers if it’s formatted well for the phone, and offers some sort of extra functionality that’s valuable to them.
Also see Microsoft’s Visions of a device driven future below. In particular regarding this post, watch for the digital newspaper in the video which is flexible and thin like paper but offers touch interactivity, color, and video. This has been promised for years but we are beginning to see technology like this finally find its way into real world devices. Very exciting.
