Slashdot Mirror
The Newspaper Isn't Dead Yet
theodp writes "Slate's Farhad Manjoo had high hopes for using the Kindle DX — Amazon's new large-screen e-reader — to read newspapers. A good first effort, says Manjoo, who concludes that for now newsprint still beats the $489 Kindle. While he has issues with latency, what he really misses relates to graphic design. The Kindle presents news as a list, leaving a reader to guess which pieces are most important to read. Newspapers, by contrast, opine on the importance of the day's news using easy-to-understand design conventions — important stories appear on front pages, with the most important ones going higher on the page and getting more space and bigger headlines. Also, because of its overnight delivery model, Manjoo gripes that the Kindle suffers from a lack of timeliness, making it not even as good as a smartphone."
Why not just wait until you get to the office and then browse the world's newspapers with google news?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I'm just a little curious what makes a new article more important than another. When I pick up a newspaper, its rarely the front page article that interests me.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
It's very simple: what will sell the most copies? Boosting circulation means being able to charge a higher rate for classifieds and advertising.
For tabloid papers, maximising circulation is explicitly considered by the editorial staff. They keep an eye on what subjects sell papers and promote similar stories to the front page.
Disclaimer: I worked for a small Newscorp paper in the classifieds department.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
The biggest earner is classifieds,
Classifieds are free now. They're called "Craig's list". Classified ad revenue used to drive newspaper revenue, but for newspapers that's now in the dumpster.
followed by advertising.
Local advertising doesn't pay when people read free online news from some paper a thousand miles away.
And yes, local content is king for newspapers:
For the most part, not enough interest there to sell a daily newspaper. A weekly paper, yes. But you're right, that's a niche that they could try to sell. It'll be a hard sale, though-- when you go to google news, what fraction of your time do you spend looking up local news?
Google News is not going to carry the local gossip.
Actually, Google news does carry local news and gossip.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com