Electronic Newspapers: From the Press to Your Screen
We’re all aware of the issues newspapers face with the advent of the Web. They’re losing their readership to various free online Websites and blogs, thus decreasing their ad revenues.
Although most newspapers have an online presence to compete against those indirect competitors, those portals don’t draw enough money from advertisers. And even though the content is trimmed compared to the physical newspaper, it doesn’t really push people to buy the more profitable printed version.
In an effort to respond to these various issues, La Presse is now offering a new product called La Presse sur mon ordi. It’s like a sophisticated PDF viewer in which you can view scans of the printed newspaper on your computer. This allows La Presse to make money online with their paper version (it costs $10 per month) while keeping the same amount of advertisements. Although it’s a valiant effort to innovate, this new product presents many flaws.
The main problem is that they try to consolidate two distinct formats into one. The vertical format of La Presse’s pages doesn’t fit very well with a computer’s (wide)screen. A lot of zooming and dragging is needed to view the content adequately, which is not an instinctive way to navigate. Also, the user interface is cluttered and clumsy, and the surrounding icons are difficult to recognize.
What are some of the alternatives?
Although it doesn’t seem like there has been a proven solution yet, there have been some interesting experiments.
The New York Times released Times Reader 2.0 earlier this year. Although similar to La Presse’s offering, it avoids some of their mistakes. Instead of being read in a Web browser, it uses an Adobe Air coded application to deliver its content. The key difference with La Presse sur mon ordi is that the newspaper isn’t literally scanned and displayed on the reader’s screen. Instead, the news articles’ presentation is tailored to computer screens. This allows the New York Times to actually enhance their content by adding interactive modules and videos. There is a clear added value compared to the printed version, which will help justify the subscription fee to reluctant consumers.
Flyp, an interactive online magazine, has clearly understood that an online publication has to be custom-made for the Web. The interface is a bit confusing for newcomers but the foundations for a great product are there. Their visual presentation is flawless. I invite you to go check it out!
Do you know of any exciting and original online magazine or newspaper? Please share them in the comments below!
The next few years will be particularly interesting, as newspapers will inevitably invest more and more resources in their online portals to seek a solution to their lost of revenue.
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