This strikes me as the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard out of the news industry. Protect a product on the decline by making a product on the rise intentionally worse?
Mmmmkay.
Why not just shut your website down entirely so that the only way to get Inquirer content is by paying for a paper to be produced and delivered to you?
Video of 14 year old Jimmy Page in 1957: I watched “It Might Get Loud” last night and part of it featured this 53 year old video clip. Don’t miss the interview a couple minutes in where Jimmy says he wants to do biological research when he grows up. As for the movie, it was pretty good, if you’re a fan of the three guitarists. I personally didn’t think The Edge added much, but I’m not a huge U2 fan either. Jack White and Page, however, were great.
How to Swear in English, if You’re Korean: “Little children and pregnant women should not watch, because it will be bad for their education.” Gets funnier every time I watch it.
Saturday Night Live: China Cold Open — I don’t watch SNL much anymore but this week’s (repeat) opening skit on U.S./China relations was hilarious. I love the translator.
Trent’s site is really nice. The single-blog-post index is an interesting touch. Make sure to click “Prev” to peruse some of Trent’s other posts.
How to make a Lost Cat poster if you’re a graphic designer and you don’t like doing free work for people. (via jimray)
“Apple of My Eye”: A short movie, filmed and edited entirely on an iPhone. Beautiful stuff. (via gruber)
Write some letters on a piece of paper, upload it via webcam, and this site will turn it into a font. Very slick. If I didn’t have deplorable handwriting, I would try it. (via Cameron)
This is one of the best investigative sports articles I’ve ever read. Really, really fascinating. If you care at all about college football, you must read it. Two really interesting things I learned: Colorado really screwed themselves, and ESPN pretty much screwed the Pac-10.
We just launched msnbc.com’s new photoblog today. It’s pretty hot and it’s not even full featured yet. Peep it.
If I ever decide to write an iPhone app, this will be the first book I buy. (via gruber)
The Battery Flashlight: Pretty cool. I can’t think of another example of a product where the battery is actually part of the user interface.
“What is the level of technology that is required to make a foam stick?” — Wham-O Moves to America (The Daily Show)
How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? A great infographic showing how the digital distribution of music has sucked artists’ royalties almost completely dry. People have argued they were never healthy to begin with, but the difference here is major. The same is going to happen to every meatspace product that transitions to digital. The iPad isn’t going to save content royalties.
Dude with ridiculous business-card throwing skills. It’s good to know business cards still have a use. (via tan.gy)
If ever anyone had a look that screamed “potential air guitar champion”, it is Rob Weychert. Watch him tear it up in the 2010 Air Guitar World Championships. I am proud to say this man has slept on my couch.
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And this is hardly the first time this silly sort of decision has been made. It’s a ’99 decision. But I still have clients who’d rather have all their content text be a .jpg of some text so that they can guarantee everyone will see that cool font they like.
Sigh.
This decision seems to be made by people not understanding both their product or audience.
Both products (paper and online) should be complimenting one another, not in direct competition. There are many reasons the physical paper is highly relevant: there’s its fantastic portability; the tangible nature of turning the pages; the experience of reading the top news stories and flipping it over to catch up with the sport on the back over a coffee or on the train. These are qualities that are not necessarily replicated well online.
Online obviously has the huge advantage of the live quality to its content, the fantastic contribution of readers comments and thoughts as well as the convenience of RSS feeds enabling you to glimpse the headlines as they evolve over the day.
This decision seems to imply that there are simply two separate consumers of their content: you are either an old timer that reads the paper and has no time for a computer, and those that only read their news online. Very perplexing indeed.
Its simply terrible decision and one I’m sure will be reverted back in due course when they realise what a faux pas it is.
[...] online publishing of many of their stories until their printed newspaper is already distributed. Mike Davidson: “This strikes me as dumbest idea I’ve ever heard out of the news industry. Protect a [...]
Agreed, Miles.
I can just imagine what it’s like to work in the web side at that paper.
This just in, ________ (insert big box store here) will not sell anymore paper products until you first buy a pen or a pencil (sorry markers don’t count).
Doug, that would be a good comparison if people actually paid for online news. But they don’t. Most people are too selfish to even sign up for a free account to read full stories, leaving newspapers with few ways to accurately prove their readership levels to advertisers.
Now, I agree that their decision isn’t a smart move when people can get their news from a million other places online, but can you really blame them for trying? Someone has to try something.
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Paul, I’m all for experimenting, but this is kind of like “experimenting” with diesel gas in your non-diesel car. You already know it’s not going to work! :)
Here’s what’s especially confounding to me about this: In order to prove, or even posit, that this is a good idea, you’d have to poll people with the following questions –
1. “Why aren’t you paying for our paper?” (Let’s assume the answer is “because I just read everything online” because that’s the only answer that would even cause an idea like this to be floated)
2. “Would you start paying for the paper again if __% of the stories weren’t available online until the paper version came out?”
I just can’t imagine anyone saying yes to the second question. If people have decided to remove newspapers from their daily routines, they are mostly likely removed for good. Sure you might get the very rare edge case who *thinks* their answer to that question is yes, but when it comes to opening their wallet, is it really? And even if it is, it is worth crippling your entire newsroom’s workflow for it?
I’ll bet the editor of the Inquirer $100 that this research has either not been done or that the results of it are being severely misinterpreted.
@paul, I do pay for an internet connection and computer though, which to me is the pen or pencil (it allows me to write), where the paper is the CMS/Blog software/etc that allows me to publish.
Taking a step back without thinking about how it is going to vault you forward, often results in last place and not two steps forward.
Also this quote
“Most people are too selfish to even sign up for a free account to read full stories”
is a rather myopic look at what is actually happening. Perhaps they aren’t the selfish ones, you are. You have assumed that the value add by signing up, will entice them to do so.
Ehh, sounds like suicide on their part.
I guess on the bright side, their newspaper website still looks 100 times better than the one for my town (www.stltoday.com) – even if the news is going to be old(er) now.
I’ll bet the local news channel websites will pounce on the opportunity to spike their traffic.
Sounds like they’re trying to rally against the “I want it free and I want it now” mantra. Good luck with that. I’m completely making this up, but it seems like people who read the paper and people who read news online are almost completely different audiences. I never touch the paper, and my girlfriend reads it every morning. Just give us the news as quick as you can in both formats – I’ll choose the one that works for me. If not, I can easily head to Google News. Granted they’re between a rock and a hard place financially, but this is death on a stick.
“Updated continuously by citizens like you, Newsvine is an instant reflection of what the world is talking about at any given moment.”
Top story on Newsvine right now? Some women wants the right to massage horses!! I’ll stick with actual news people who may well make silly decisions but at least they go out and get actual news that might relevant rather than the “vote” it up crowd who, as illustrated, don’t have a damn clue!
I work for a newspaper and we’ve made a dramatic shift to publishing stories on our website as soon as we have them rather than on our print news cycle. Granted the move should have been made 8 years ago, but what do you expect from execs who were wet nursed in Pangaea?
We do hold some stories we feel are exclusive for competitive reasons.
Emma: Newsvine is not a replacement for your local news organization. It’s a different filter on the news of the world.
The only thing this will accomplish is further alienate people who trust the Inquirer — now, since they can’t get their news online in a time-sensitive way, they’ll stop using Philly.com at all, which will further erode the value of the news reporting (and the income the online venue brings in).
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
[...] online publishing of many of their stories until their printed newspaper is already distributed. Mike Davidson: This strikes me as dumbest idea I’ve ever heard out of the news industry. Protect a product on [...]