E-books: Sans ink, sans paper but they still have sans serif
"Instead of printing presses, you can have servers that deliver not
only your content, but other print-based media"
Nineteen months ago, I saw newspapers as the best option for the
sort of serendipitous reading I like, and said so in this space. Newspapers, I said, would
remain inexpensive, portable, cost-effective and -- owing to their vast, well-trained
staffs -- pertinent.
No longer am I so sure.
More and more, the places I turn for information are not newspapers. What
I want often does not appear in newspapers, or even in print. My Palm Pilot automatically
connects to my laptop twice a day to update a wide range of information. Beginning next
week, that will be done on the fly as I switch to a wireless unit. Other things are read
on computer or even downloaded and printed out. And, in the one area where I thought
newspapers had a lock, I now see people passing around personal digital assistants and
laptops on the train, pointing out stories, stock prices or what have you, something I
never expected to see.
And I'm the slow guy on my block. My next-door neighbors, for example, get
the Sunday paper. Not because they read it, but because their daughter occasionally needs
it for one school project or another. If they need what I think of as news, they go to the
Web. Another neighbor subscribes to two papers, but often they collect, unread, on the
front lawn. When she needs news, she goes either to the Web or to her Palm.
And the information they are reading is coming from people who have
abandoned the traditional newspaper business.
Newspapers can, however, fight back. Available through AvantGo on the Palm
and Windows CE devices are the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and San Jose
Mercury News, among others. If your paper were on there, and I knew I was coming to
your town, I would be likely to load it and read up beforehand, something I'm not likely
to do in print or even on the Web.
Also available now to eat away at newspaper reading time is the latest
generation of electronic books and readers.
I am writing this column on a plane, using a three-pound laptop with ample
battery life to go from Dallas to Newark. When I finish, I can fire up a piece of software
from Glassbook (http://www.glassbook.com/) and
read Huck Finn, Through the Looking Glass, Dracula or even the latest Scott Turow
thriller. It looks like a book, it reads like a book and you even hold it like a book.
I picked the Glassbook reader up at the Seybold Seminars in February,
where the theme was "print is dead." It was easy to see why: A significant
portion of the show floor was devoted to electronic books. Partners of San Jose's Adobe
Systems Inc. were showing ways to securely deliver books and magazines in the Acrobat
Portable Document Format (PDF) to computers or the new generation of electronic books and
personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Also on display were products from Softbook, eBook, Rocketbook and some
others, with products either shipping or in prototype.
All of these took the basic design of a book put in a bunch of chips and a
'Net connection, and said here you go. Adobe, for example, has a PDF server that can
deliver subscription content to any number of electronic devices.
This is not to say that newspapers are doomed. Several papers are
available on these books, but -- just as at newsstands -- they have competition from more
focused niche publications and all the other things available to read.
Newspapers also could give away these books to subscribers. The Rocket
eBook, for example, lists for $199 retail. That is less than what I pay yearly in
subscription fees to just one newspaper. They could give me the eBook, charge me less and
not have to send the person out who throws the paper into the rose bush. The cost is
similar for the competing products.
Imagine one of them with your logo on it. Instead of printing presses, you
can have servers that deliver not only your content, but also books, magazines,
advertising and other print-based media -- with you getting a cut of each and every
transaction. Yes, you will still need presses, but they can go computer-to-plate with the
shorter press runs, cutting costs further -- and you can use the extra time for more niche
publications and commercial work.
Another place of competition -- or opportunity -- is Wireless Access
Protocol, which web-enables phones, PDAs and the like. Not much information could be sent
to one of these but it can be enough -- like a headline -- to give users the gist and
refer them to a more appropriate medium.
In 1993, one of the speakers at the NAA Connections meeting said that
railroad barons knew they were in the transportation business but let their love of steam
and steel cloud their minds. If newspapers are to continue to compete, it's not enough to
remember that we are in the information business; we must also be willing to abandon paper
and ink.
-- Steven E. Brier
From NEWSINC.,
March 13, 2000, Copyright ©
2000, All Rights Reserved.
