Last week at SES San Jose I caught up with Topher Kohan, search engine optimizer for CNN, and interviewed him about the shift from print to digital media. He had some interesting things to say and is a big advocate of newspapers altering their business model and converting to an entirely digital publication platform. Topher feels that holding a hard copy of a newspaper is a good nostalgia trip but that everyday news will, for the most part, continue to be digested by users and readers from the Internet and other digital means.
The Shift from Print to Digital Media from 10e20 LLC on Vimeo.
What do you guys think? Should all print news publications throw in the towel and start offering up all their information digitally, save for the occasional commemorative publication when something monumentally newsworthy and historical occurs? How, in your opinion, can print publications have the best of both worlds and continue to operate successfully in both print and digital worlds? Drop your comments below, or tweet at us (@10e20)!
By the way, I apologize for my unfortunate sounding voice.
at least you don't sound like a 13 yr old girl (like I do)
What's wrong with your voice? You sound fine.
I'm sending this to my dad, who is a newspaper publisher. Not sure how he's going to feel about it. Sorry Pops! Actually, in talking with him, I think he understands the future is on the web and is trying to move his paper in that direction and improve their online offerings. He's not ready to completely get behind Topher, and I think that it depends on the market of specific papers when it comes to going completely digital. For now at least.
Some newspapers have made a complete hash of things moving online. Those slow to respond will in all likelihood die off, or get bought out.
I think that eventually most of the newspapers will go digital. Especially when kindle and other readers will be more accessible for all. Its just a matter of time.
The only problem with digital content at the moment is accessibility for those that read traditional media. Not everyone wants to sit around with a large, expensive laptop all the time to read their news. Once technology catches up with how people like to live, things will go all digital. It really is just a matter of time as Jeff says above. There is hope with the advancements in digital paper and Apple is supposed to be coming out with a tablet soon as well. But either way, readership and revenues are down and it's not going to get any better.
The future tells us that, time will come newspaper publishing will come into digital. Sorry to say this.
Getting news digitally is great if you are looking for a quick snap shot/overview. However reading the news from your laptop or home computer can be quite hard work. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for traditional new papers – but in my option I think they will be around for some time to come.