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."
Lining my parrot's cage with Kindles would get expensive.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Well, yes... some people do. Not anyone who reads /. though! So the original point was pretty valid for this audience!
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.