The word “reinventing” is overused, and frankly, it’s tells an opposite story of what it is suppose to mean. When you try to reinvent something, you are basically just attempting to change it.
GM (or Ford, or Toyota, you take your pick) “reinvents” cars every 3 months; Verizon “reinvents” the phone every now and then; and I am pretty sure whichever industry you are in, someone had tried to “reinvent” something.
“Reinventing” has become a nice little substitution for “trying to improve” . It’s safe, gutless and boring. What you should do instead is to invent.
Now back on topic, let’s reinvent the newspaper.
Newspapers today are in trouble. They are in trouble because their readers stopped subscribing to them, and the advertisers stopped paying them. Circulations go down; revenue goes down; profit is down; overheads keep rising; it appears hopeless.
Question: what if newspapers had never existed? Where would you get your news from everyday?
TV? Not flexible enough: I don’t get to watch different sections of the news on my own terms.
Radio? Worse than TV, and I don’t even get to see any pictures/videos.
Websites? This seems to be obviously solution. It has all the advantages of the two sources above (plus a lot more) and not the disadvantages. But the thing is, not everyone enjoys the company of a desktop/laptop at the breakfast table. Plus, there are people who simply don’t trust them websites, and I can’t blame them. After all, just putting the words “New York Times” on a piece of paper means a heck lot more than some underlined blue text.
So let’s brainstorm. what we are looking is a handheld device that’s…
1. wireless, light weight and easy to operate and maintain (even for the not so “tech-savvy” people like my grandparents);
2. made by and with contents coming from a trustworthy publisher; (oh, i don’t know, maybe the…Times?)
3. focused only on delivering the news (possibly from several different publishers) and advertisements.
Better yet, how about…
4. Let me sort my favorite sections and rearrange my reading preferences everyday.
5. Let me give my feedback on the stories and it could go back to the news providers and/or all the other readers reading the same story, real-time. Oh yeah, I would love to see what others are saying, too.
6. Let me connect with my friends and my favorite reporters.
7. Let me recommend a story or a reporter to my friends.
8. Give me the ability to dig up “old news” as references or just for fun.
9. Let me choose which advertisements I’d like to see based on my subscription: if I am willing to pay more, I get less or no ads.
10. I would like to have the device for free if I am willing to subscribe to you for X number of years. (X being the number that makes sense for both the reader and the publisher).
I am sure you can think of a lot more than what’s on the list here. The real question then becomes: who can make such a device called newspaper?
My answer: if Amazon can, so can the Times.
[Update on 5/4/2009: My friend sent me this article. Too bad there wasn't a newspaper who is willing to take the risk. And on a separate note, apparently Tom Hurley is still wondering who is getting paid. ]
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Interesting thoughts. It sounds like you’re describing the way publishers are going to move their content online and into Kindles, iPhones, etc. But I doubt the individual publishers will put out their own proprietary device for their exclusive content. Do you really think these struggling papers have resources to get into the hardware business?
Kirk,
Thanks for the comment! You are the first comment I’ve got since I started this blog about 2 weeks ago. Yayyyyyyy!
My point was that:
1) It’s getting cheaper to make hardware by the minute.
2) Instead of trying to change things, it seems to me that the newspapers are determined to improve on their existing business model when it is obvious that the old model is simply dying.
3) They should look to form alliances and take risks. Otherwise, the end is (mush) closer than they think.