From the Wall Street Journal On-line (you can’t make this stuff up):
Even a 30-inch screen can’t match the readability of what cheaply spits out of a printing press. I really believe that the copy protection mechanism for newspapers is their consumer interface, in the form of ink spurted on newsprint.
The author then runs down the litany of new technologies that will bust up the electronic media oligopoly, all seemingly without understanding that print is already on the other side of that hump.
The ultimate argument: Print will triumph because it shackles end-users in a prison of atoms. Print is better because it is user-hostile. You can’t copy it. You can’t extract from it and blog about it, as I am doing here. You can’t share it with a friend except in the same way you might share a communicable disease.
Breathe deep, pal. There’s a clue in the air. If you’re very lucky, you just might catch it.
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Chris says:
How true. I’m 21 and I only read the papers for work, ie the real estate sections. When I want news I get it online.
Papers are DOA
May 25, 2007 — 7:52 am
Erin Fogarty says:
Very true, technology is in and print is out. However, I find it interesting that the Wall Street Journal is running this story ONLINE! They are using the internet to tell us that the internet is not taking over print. I wonder how many people actually read this article off of a sheet of newsprint…?
May 25, 2007 — 8:53 am
Ryan H says:
That’s great stuff. It’s amazing how many folks live in the land of denial and the irony of my finding this here, rather than in print, is priceless!
May 25, 2007 — 10:24 am
Jay Thompson says:
Wow, this guy is CLUELESS….
“No one is teleporting a newspaper to your home anytime soon.”
(read as I sit in my living room. It WAS all but teleported to me. And I get no ink on my hands, nor do I have to bother with disposing of it. And, you can fit a LOT of electrons in a landfill)
May 25, 2007 — 2:33 pm
Jim Gatos says:
Gee, I haven’t bought a paper in years, except to wrap fish..
Yup, I guess Print IS HERE TO STAY!
Jim
May 25, 2007 — 3:23 pm
John Coley says:
Greg- as much as I always agree with your takes, I think you totally missed the point on this one. I read that article (both in print and online) and his major point is – CONTENT IS KING – the same thing we bloggers preach. He argued that the newspaper companies have better resources for creating content that do, eg, cable companies, that simply own the rights to a government granted monoply on “the pipes” to local cable markets. In the web 2.0 world, he argued, content generators will be OK, as long as they figure out how to deliver their medium, be it in print, online, or whatever. Incidentally, the WSJ is about as good as it gets in mashing the best of print and ‘puter. As a subscriber to both, I think I am the better for them both.
May 25, 2007 — 9:29 pm
Jeff Kempe says:
So much fodder here. The argument ‘newspapers aren’t dying because broadcast is…’ is just silly.
That said, John’s at least partly correct: Newspapers aren’t dying simply because they’re newspapers, but because those who run them, Rupert Murdoch perhaps excepted, are inept. They’re stuck in the past and refuse to update. Thus the Minniapolis Star Tribune takes a column away from one of the best writers in the country – James Lileks – and demotes him to a local beat in order to save money. Lileks will survive, the Star Tribune will not.
May 27, 2007 — 9:02 am