NY Times Kindle

In the past decade the medium of print has continually faced harder times. More and more consumers of the news turn to the internet and to podcasts. Not only has the newspaper industry suffered an assault by the internet, but like most other businesses it has been hit by the global recession as well. It is not just Americans newspapers which are suffering. One of America’s newspaper giants is on the verge of bankruptcy: The New York Times. The issues of the reproduction and the distribution of physical items has become daunting in the time of virtual reproduction and distribution. It has been stated that it would be cheaper to give long term subscribers (2 years or more) to the New York Times an Amazon Kindle, a virtual book/newspaper reading device, to view the virtual edition of the NY Times. In fact it would it would cost them 1/2 as much as distributing print. Everyday at 5 AM the digital NY Times is distributed to electronic devices world wide without Jimmy Brown the paperboy.
There are obviously good reasons for the NY Times to go digital. When $63 million dollars a quarter year is spent on raw materials, it is a lot of overhead. But will fans follow to digital press? Will fans have to? While the direction seems to be inevitable I think that an experience will be lost. There is an experience to a newspaper which involves the smell of ink, the portability, the cheap cost, and tangible feel of the page under your thumb.


Material from this blog was derived from the TWIT podcast: http://twit.tv/