Comments on: The Power of Physical News. What the Internet doesn’t provide.

By: The Times Skimmer Makes Me Believe In Newspapers Online

The Times Skimmer Makes Me Believe In Newspapers Online — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:12:06 +0000

[...] off of my personal note on why I prefer to read newspapers offline, the New York Times has just launched a product that [...]

By: The Times Skimmer Makes Me Believe In Newspapers Online

The Times Skimmer Makes Me Believe In Newspapers Online — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:12:06 +0000

[...] off of my personal note on why I prefer to read newspapers offline, the New York Times has just launched a product that [...]

By: andy

andy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:34:55 +0000

well put

By: Mitä Internet voi oppia sanomalehden käytettävyydestä? « reflections for discussion

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:08:57 +0000

[...] pidetään usein kankeana ja hitaana käyttöliittymänä, mutta thenextweb.com:n juttu sai minut kirjoittamaan tästä. Olen kauan pitänyt sanomalehden käyttöliittymää monissa [...]

By: Notícias do dia | 28.11.2009

Notícias do dia | 28.11.2009 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:29:22 +0000

[...] Alex Wilhelm: O poder de notícias “físicas” [...]

By: Khaled AlSaleh

Khaled AlSaleh — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:43:15 +0000

Great post. I think newspapers should stick to producing content and leave the distribution to sites like the huffington post.

By: Dave Nattriss

Dave Nattriss — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:25:56 +0000

True, you can’t easily read blogs offline (though this paper just started in the UK last week that does bridge the gap – http://theblogpaper.co.uk ), but arguably you wouldn’t bother as a typical blog post is just a personal opinion by somebody who isn’t professionally recognised and thus isn’t really worth of being put into print anyway. Though that’s where theblogpaper may shake things up a bit, surfacing the quality blog posts above all the dross.

I switched from Tweetdeck to Seesmic Desktop a while back as it happens, but yes, I do shut it down sometimes as it can be a CPU hog, and during peak periods on a week day I can have notifications almost constantly popping up which is a distraction from work (I’m a freelance web developer), especially as I also use Trillian Alpha with connections to at least 8 online networks. But I *can* read a long web article without getting distracted, with notifications or not, if I put my mind to it!

I disagree about the headline pull – every newspaper article has a headline! I suppose the difference though is that very few people browse inside a newspaper before buying it – i.e. the publishers have already got their payment, and it’s only the front and back page headlines that really need to stand out – whereas online each and every page view is worth something in advertising revenues.

It’s interesting how you see this site as a tech blog, as opposed to just tech news. Is that because you write articles like this which are more opinion/comment based? Or just because (I’m guessing) most of the ‘news’ comes from elsewhere and you are just putting your own spin/opinion on it?

By: Alex Wilhelm

Alex Wilhelm — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:10:27 +0000

Well, for starters, you cannot read blogs offline, so people tend to consume more blogs and less newspaper (odd wording) online.

Also, as you said, distractions abound online. You can turn them off? Really? Do you ever? I cannot recall a time, ever, when I turned off TweetDeck for anything excpept the girlfriend.

The medium itself is the power, the format lends itself to reading more boradly, and more in depth. Given that the articles are not designed for headline pull, but for news, they are more accurate, less opinionated, etc.

Tech blogging is a whole different breed. No newspapers could do what we do.

By: Dave Nattriss

Dave Nattriss — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:59:16 +0000

But blogs and newspapers are very different, as you’ve admitted yourself, so why recommend people go and buy a physical newspaper, when they can read all the same quality articles online? And if it’s just that they/you get distracted by all their online notifications, you/they can easily just turn them off. The issue here isn’t the medium (the web), it’s the way you use it (by multitasking between various services), the sites you choose to read and how you are reading them.

Sorry, I don’t see how the medium of newsprint – i.e. printing text and images onto paper in a factory and then transporting it overnight to vendors all over the country/world at considerable cost – has any real advantage over reading the same text and images, but also with video, audio, related links, live reader comments and much more, on the web (using a desktop machine, laptop/netbook, games console/webTV, mobile device/eReader or public information screen).

By: Alex Wilhelm

Alex Wilhelm — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:47:34 +0000

Your point on distractions is dead on, but you lose me on online newspapers. I agree with you that online newspapers are something of a middle ground, but that hardly invalidates the blog to newspaper analogy.

Your final point misses my whole point, the format of print can bee useful.

Anyway.