Could a "Mobile first" strategy work for your newsroom?
Here’s a little experiment – next time you’re commuting on a train or bus, or waiting for a flight, look at your fellow travellers. How many are reading newspapers? Now how many are fiddling with their mobile phones?
Since writing that first article, he’s now devised an actual plan on how a mobile-orientated newsroom could operate. Those toying with iPhone apps and SMS subscriptions may want to pay attention.
Says Buttry: “A successful mobile-first strategy will require effective work by reporters, photojournalists, designers, technologists, sales and marketing people, and management.”
“That principle,” he says, “is fundamental to mobile-first success.”
What then follows is an incredibly detailed breakdown of each aspect of the mobile news strategy, broken down into Reporting, Writing and Photojournalism, Design, Technology, Sales and Marketing, Leadership and Training.
For example journalists, he argues, need to become fluent in metadata, giving the mobile phone the context of the story so it knows what to give the user when and where.
As for the moneymen, Buttry advises them that any service needs not to be too intrusive, especially location-based advertising, lest the audience devise ways of turning it off.
He also suggests that organisations must be careful not to use just a single mobile tool, such as a mobile website or iPhone application, and therefore miss opportunities such as local business sponsorship for breaking news alerts or e-newsletters.
Even if “mobile first” isn’t for your newsroom, there is certainly enough here to enhance whatever use you do want to make of mobile technology.
Christmas is coming, the goose is on a credit-crunch inflicted diet and as the journalism world licks it wounds from this year's squabbles, many are starting to look what next year is set to bring.
Firstly, Patrick Smith brings a tale of caution on PaidContent – if you thought hyperlocal news was going to be your big thing of 2010, you may want to have a quick re-think.
He reports that whilst the promise for hyperlocal’s place in UK news is there, the boundless optimism is not in doubt and there’s even hints of a local business model emerging, the delivery of quality post-code level news across most of the country still a long way off, and sustainable revenues and—dare we say it—profits are even further.
He also says how unless the ifs and maybes surrounding the use of hyperlocal models do not turn into certainties the Digital Britain project won’t be up and running till 2012 and that includes any role that public money would play.
So, he says, 2010 will not be hyperlocal’s year. But, he counters, the signs are auspicious: increasing levels of online literacy and broadband connections mixed with more inevitable local newspaper closures mean it’s natural that readers—and advertisers—will shift to new outlets.
Next, acknowledging that talking about journalism and its future is the “lifeblood of Academia”, there’s a nice piece by Harvard’s Nieman Lab writer C.W. Anderson on what we have learnt from 2009 and what new squabbles will arise in the new year.
The article jokes how bloggers and journalists seem to have finally made peace and accepted their perceived war is over; that we realise not all content will be free but the new business models may not be enough to counter the financial losses many news organisations have suffered; and that, because of this, journalism will be produced in a different way – by smaller, niche publications.
Instead, our attentions will turn to the kind of politics facilitated by the digital world and the policies and laws that will govern this world (and whilst the focus of the article is on the US, it is still relevant to the UK as the government faces up to a growing campaign to reform libel law, something it has been considering because of the impact of the internet).
It also talks of the type of networks that might emerge in the new “media ecosystem” – that we may see that it is large media companies that have diversified and created a local branding – and how journalism schools will need to adapt as the industry itself mutates.
It also talks about what the increased use of a semantic web may have for the future of news in a world of Demand Media and computational journalism. Big questions indeed but something new to think about at least.
They have reported that over 6,700 readers have downloaded the app to follow the latest updates from the paper.
This means that it has been downloaded at a rate of approximately 900 a week since its creation.
There are section for news and show business, among others, while fans of Manchester United and Manchester City can keep in touch with dedicated sections for the two teams.
Alfred Hermida’s Reportr blog has an interesting story on new guidelines that have been issued by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, in partnership with UNESCO on how to handle user generated content.
According to Hermida, apart from covering the usual issues such as quality and any legal questions, it has sought to press the idea of UGC promoting greater media democracy.
The advice, he says, focuses not just on how to handle UGC, but also on the issue of media and information literacy.
It argues that news organisations would benefit from promoting greater media literacy, by strengthening relationships with audiences and countering claims that UGC is just a way of getting free content.
NYT app for Blackberry
Finally, whilst developing an app for an iPhone may seem old hat now, Editor and Publisher has reported that the New York Times has developed an app for the latest models of Blackberry Smartphones.
With advertiser sponsorship by UPS, the app application formats content for optimal navigation and display on BlackBerry Smartphones, offers automatic synching and allows users to store articles directly to their devices for offline reading.
"Mobile continues to be a very popular way for Times readers to access our content," Marc Frons, The New York Times Co.'s chief technology officer/digital operations, said in a statement.
"With this new application for BlackBerry Smartphones, we are offering BlackBerry users with the latest models a faster, more dynamic and more personalized experience for reading up-to-the-minute news, analysis and opinion from NYTimes.com."
With the Manchester Evening News launching its own iPhone app, other newspapers may be considering their own next move in attracting wider audiences.
A report by Business Week has highlighted how easy it now is to follow in the MEN's footsteps. For those who are tech-savvy, there are dozens of guides on how to create your own iPhone app on Youtube.
But what do you do if you're not so confident?
According to Business Week, there has been a new crop of services to help non-techies and those who may have concerns about quality, distribution and security of DIY methods, to create their very own iPhone app, no matter what business they're in.
Led by the likes of Swebapps.com and MyAppBuilder.com, they can help create the apps often in less time and for less money than it would for the company to develop the app from scratch.
Clients could create downloadable games, travel guides, quizzes, blog feeds and, as with the MEN, breaking news headlines, sometimes as simply as by plugging specs into online templates.
Business Week describes how the already expanding market for these apps is likely to grow at a faster pace. It states how the number of apps downloaded through the likes of the Apple App store and Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Marketplace for Mobile may surge to 18.7 billion in 2014, from about 491 million at the end of 2008, according to consultant Ovum. That may result in sales of nealry £3.5 billion in 2014, up from over £222 million last year, Ovum says.
The Manchester Evening News (MEN) has become the first regional news publisher to launch an iPhone application, reports journalism.co.uk.
Readers will be able to follow headline stories in categories such as news, business and showbiz, as well as dedicated sections for Manchester United and Manchester City.
According to the MEN, more that 1,000 users have downloaded the application since it was created earlier this month.
The MEN already has a mobile website but says that this new app will provide an enhanced service for iPhone users, as well as allowing them to share stories on Facebook and Twitter.
Users can also download stories to be read offline later.
iPhone users can get the application from the App Store on their device, by searching for Manchester Evening News and iPod Touch users can get it from iTunes.
A short video of the app, developed by Spreed Inc - who also created Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail's iPhone app - can be seen on YouTube
Twitter, iPhones, Flips, Flickr, Geotagging, Facebook, MP3s…the influx of technology now involved in digital journalism can be overwhelming.
Every journalist is looking out for the next thing that will give them the edge when reporting the news, especially when they’re out on the street.
So what are the best tools for the job?
This is a question asked by Paul Bradshaw, Course Direct of the MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University’s School of Media, on his blog.
He has considered just what hardware, software, systems and mindset today’s mobile journalist needs and will be presenting his ideas in a lecture tomorrow (Thursday 22nd) which, as he says, in the spirit of mobile journalism, he will be streaming live on Bambuser from 9am UK time.
Some of the essentials Paul suggests include:
Smartphone with camera, video, audio, unlimited data plan
Digital camcorder, e.g. Flip, Kodak Zi8
Digital dictaphone or Zoom
Applications such as Spinvox – a blog via voice – Audioboo, Twibble – GPS twitter updates – and Zyb – which synchronises contacts and your calendar
Map of wifi hotspots, mobile and 3G coverage
Embedded players for livestreaming/liveblogging
Geotagging information for mapping
An ‘Always-on’ approach – tweet on the go; share images; stream quick video. Think humour, art, quirky, as much as ‘news’. Prepare yourself and users for when you need it.
Being part of a mobile community – follow people on Twitter
Being creative with mobile, not formulaic: the rules aren’t written yet
For anyone who can’t watch the session live (which lasts approximately 45minutes), Paul will be embedding the lecture onto his blog.
Flurry studied user retention across 19 categories, looking at whether consumers returned to use a downloaded app within 30, 60 or 90 days, as well as how frequently they used it over those time periods.
The study found that continually refreshed news apps, which provide consumers "nearly infinite value over time," were used an average of 11 times per week.
The least-used apps were those in the "entertainment" category, a collection of "gimmick" apps such as Lighter, Fart and IQ Test. Such apps are typically used only a few times and then abandoned, Flurry found.
Social media monitor Mashable observed that though silly apps might have the most initial downloads, they also are easily uninstalled. In other words, 'farts win the battle, but news wins the war,' as Mashable put it.
(Coming later this week from Horowitz: A list of iPhone apps, followed by a comparison of Blackberry and iPhone. Check Poynter's "Online and Technology" site to keep up!)
Both the iPhone and Blackberry offer online apps stores. You'll need to download "BlackBerry App World" if it didn't come on your phone. If you can't find an app you want there, Horowitz says, it can be downloaded from the developer's Web site on your BlackBerry browser.
Here's his list:
* Qik: Enables you to broadcast live video from your phone. Qik videos are embeddable, and a live stream can be posted on Twitter, Facebook and other sites. Qik is an easy way to cover breaking news visually.
* UberTwitter: Faster and with more features than TwitterBerry, this free program makes it easy to promote your work, crowd-source and stay on top of breaking news. It also lets you e-mail tweets and upload both photos and videos.
* BlackBerry Messenger: The instant messaging programme (allowing you to communicate with other BlackBerry users) includes the ability to group messages and to see when the other person is typing -- helpful when you need to know if someone is about to respond. Horowitz says Sentinel photographers and photo editors use BlackBerry Messenger because it allows them to send information quickly without interrupting a photographer on assignment.
* Google Mobile App: This app allows journalists who use Google products and services, such as Gmail or Google Maps, to get easy access to them on their BlackBerry.
* Evernote: You cannot edit or create new Google Docs on a BlackBerry, but Evernote provides a handy way to write notes that are accessible on the Web. For instance, you could start writing a story on Evernote on the BlackBerry, then pull it up on Evernote.com when you return to your computer. Evernote also enables you to record audio notes and to store documents or photos.
* Google Voice: For journalists who don't want to ever miss a call from a source, or who want to screen calls, Horowitz writes, "Google Voice is a godsend." The app also transcribes voice mails, enables you to record conversations and lets you switch from your cell to your office phone in the middle of the conversation.
* Opera Mini: The Web browser installed on your BlackBerry may not be a full HTML browser, so some pages won't load and others will be displayed in a text format. Opera Mini is an alternative browser that displays Web pages in an easier-to-view format on your phone.
* Facebook: The social networking site has become a valuable tool for journalists who want to find sources and story ideas, promote their work and engage readers. The BlackBerry version sports a basic interface; it enables you to upload photos (but not video) to Facebook.
* Tethering: Rather than an app, tethering is a feature that gives the BlackBerry an advantage over the iPhone, Horowitz writes. Depending on your rate plan, you can connect it to your computer and use it as a modem to get online.
* Vlingo: This app lets you use voice commands to perform such tasks as sending text messages, opening applications, and updating your Twitter or Facebook status. Both free and paid versions are available.
Print publishers are extremely interested in mobile strategies for content distribution and advertising, according to a new survey by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, MediaDailyNews reports.
More than half the 375 print publishing executives surveyed said they are already distributing content via mobile devices. Among newspaper publishers, 58% said they have formatted their Web sites to make them mobile-friendly or have created dedicated mobile Web sites.
They expect the services to be financed through both subscription and advertising; so far, however, users have shown more interest than advertisers in mobile content, the survey found. Publishers also commonly report that mobile use drives traffic to their Web sites.
In addition, three-quarters either have a "smart phone" application already in production or plan to create one in the next two years.
The publishers widely expect print distribution to diminish, but not vanish, over the next decade.
News publishers expecting to make money online will need to figure out how to offer something tangible -- and mobile represents big-time opportunity, especially for phone applications, advises veteran digital media observer Steve Outing in his latest Stop the Presses column.
Outing has long believed that non-niche news content is better off being free, supported by advertising and other revenue streams. But after talking recently with two mobile gurus, he said, he realized that people seem to prefer to spend money on things they can "keep." A phone app may not be a physical thing, but it's there on your phone every time you turn it on, he writes. It's "yours."
Consider the iPhone, for which Apple CEO Steve Jobs boasted last week that 1.8 billion apps had been downloaded in just two years. An estimated 13% of those apps carry a price tag, according to a February 2009 presentation by Pinch Media; the figure is likely higher today.
For years, Outing points out, publishers had no trouble selling a physical product, the printed paper, which readers got to keep as long as they liked. Efforts to charge for the intangible online product, in contrast, have nearly all failed miserably.
Perhaps, he says, one of the main reasons is that when online news consumers were asked to pay for news, many felt that they weren't getting anything, because they received nothing tangible -- just information (most of which is free online anyway).
The same goes for general news content on mobile phones, Outing says. But, he added, "Fortunately, mobile phones now have something that people will buy: apps. And mobile is poised to become the next growth area for content publishers."
Publishers, he says, should create an iPhone app (followed by apps for other devices such as Blackberries) that offers a better news experience than viewing a website on a phone's browser, as well as other valuable features. And they should charge for it.
"Non-niche, non-unique digital news has no monetary value to most readers. News providers, if they are to make money directly from consumers in the online and mobile worlds, need to come up with non-ephemeral offerings," he says. "The key to getting paid for news in digital format is that what's being sold is not fleeting."
For instance, he suggests:
* Paid news memberships. With a membership to a news organization, you get something -- perhaps including a membership card (physical or digital) to be used repeatedly to get special privileges, such as discounts from advertisers or access to premium content.
* Access. Charging people to read the regular column from a star writer, for instance, may not work, as The New York Times discovered during its TimesSelect paid-subscription experiment. But publishers might take a hint from Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, who offers a paid "Premium Membership" Among 16 extra benefits, it includes special access to O'Reilly, including "preferred e-mail" that gets your message bumped to the front of the queue, and a weekly live chat during which Premium members get to ask O'Reilly questions.
* Special Web applications for PCs. If apps sell so well on mobile phones (albeit at generally low prices), news companies may want to consider selling applications for the PC that offer consumers an enhanced online news-reading experience. Readers get to "keep" the software.
More thoughts and ideas can be found in Outing's column, available free for a limited time.
Mobile usage is soaring, with 3.9 subscribers expected by the end of 2009 and a billion more in 2012, according to estimates by Portio Research. Global wireless online access also is growing very rapidly -- from 70 million to 920 million in 2008. The growth is occurring in both developed and developing nations.
"There is no question mobile, although currently a small slice of the digital pie, will increasingly be a key platform audiences turn to, and newspapers must be there to meet them," the WAN report says. It quotes Anders Børde, marketing director for Oslo-based More Mobile Relations, who warns that "newspapers, as well as any other type of company, cannot take the risk of not communicating with customers over the mobile platform. It will simply be expected."
Experts cited in the report say mobile is "ripe" for the development of advertising to suit the platform, as well as offering the ability to develop micro-payment opportunities.
Mobile tagging is another promising revenue stream, the report says. By digitally linking a 2-D barcode and a mobile device, users can obtain complementary information such as coupons, product details and contests.
The Independent is working with two media groups to enhance its video content.
Firstly, the newspaper has secured a deal with Press Association to supply its website with 200 video packages per week.
It has also signed an agreement with Octopus Media Technology to improve the presentation and distribution of video content.
According to the Independent, PA video journalists will provide 100 voiced video reports each week as well as 100 short clips to be displayed alongside the newspaper’s own articles.
“Working with PA and Octopus ensures that we have a platform that can deliver video to our userbase that is both flexible and integrated,” said Bill Swanson, managing director for digital at the Independent.
“The range of content also enables us to position the player in more areas of the site, it is the next step in our evolution as we continue to try and enhance the user experience and relevancy of our site.”
A tech journalist has created a Twitter application designed to help reporters get the most out of the social media tool.
Creator Andrew Miller says he made his JournoTwit program “to suit the fast-paced, nomadic lifestyle of a journalist”.
It enables users to view tweets in columns for various Twitter feeds and to prioritise updates from selected Twitterers.
Miller writes: “JournoTwit is a lot like TweetDeck, but web-based.
“It stores all your settings, and your last read tweet, remotely, allowing you to move from machine to machine to mobile seamlessly, or simultaneously.”
Both desktop and mobile versions of the app are available and Miller notes that an iPhone variant is on its way.
Over $5 million (£3 million) is to be shared among the winning projects, all of which seek to provide innovative ways for news and data to be shared with communities.
Among the successful bidders are an open platform document-sharing scheme and a project to develop data visualisation tools.
Receiving over $350,000 from the Knight News Challenge is MediaBugs, which plans to create a national website where readers can report journalistic inaccuracies published online or in print.
The brainchild of Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg, MediaBugs hopes to promote transparency among reporters when it comes to admitting and fixing their errors.
Another recipient of a significant sum is a wiki project from New York’s Gotham Gazette.
The online news provider will use its $250,000 grant to fund the creation of a wiki dedicated to the law-makers at the city council.
Gotham Gazette is planning to use the wiki to inform citizens about local politics and share information about city legislators.
Mobile journalism is the focus of a winning bid from the co-founder of MobileActive.
A $200,000 grant will fund the organisation’s plans to create the downloadable Mobile Media Toolkit.
The toolkit will feature applications for video and audio as well as a function enabling content distribution on social networking sites.
A list of the nine winning projects is available on this pdf file.
The Knight News Challenge is a five-year contest to fund community-focused digital journalism projects.
“Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man’s quest for perfect communications.
“Here he was, far out in space ... yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased.
“The text was updated automatically on every hour ... one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites.”
Sound familiar? In 2009 the fantasy has become reality (‘cept the spacey bit) and electronic readers are beloved by many of the tech world’s early adopters.
But they’re still fairly unknown in the UK and have yet to really break the mainstream market in the US (although the Kindle did make Oprah Winfrey’s list of favourite things in 2008).
However, lots of media commentators are already excited about their potential for newspapers and are predicting that the e-reader could represent the future iTunes moment for the news industry.
In this post we’ll be taking a look at some of the current market leaders and how they are working with newspapers to offer paid-for content.
And we’ll examine some of the arguments for the devices becoming an ideal way for newspapers to make money from their content in the digital age.
We’ll also see how devices such as smartphones and Mobile Internet Devices (MID) could provide an alternative e-reading platform.
Then we’ll take a look at predictions for the future of e-readers and consider which manufacturers and publishers may enter the market soon.
Finally, we’ll offer links for further reading and to reviews of some of the main hardware devices.
What Is An E-Reader?
E-book readers, e-readers, eReaders – these terms are all used by various companies for their products, whether it’s the actual piece of hardware on which documents are read or the software that facilitates their display.
For ease of understanding, we’ll refer to them as e-readers and by this we mean a portable device on which users can read electronic versions of books, newspapers etc (software will simply be referred to as e-reader software).
At the moment the best known types of e-readers (Kindle, Sony Reader, iRex iLiad) use the electronic paper display from E Ink Corp, which its creators claim has a “paper-like contrast appearance”.
The idea is that these devices provide users with the closest experience to reading actual paper as possible, so they have none of the backlight and glare of standard LCD computer screens and can be read in bright sunlight.
On the downside, the technology is pretty expensive and E-Ink displays cannot yet produce colour or moving images.
So, let’s have a look at some of the most popular models on the market and see what they have to offer.
Amazon Kindle and Kindle 2
Now, the Kindle is not yet sold in the UK - although super keen customers have been importing them - but it still merits top billing here as it’s the best known e-reader and is working with a lot of newspapers (including British ones) to deliver their content.
Launched in 2007, the Kindle uses a wireless 3G network with Whispernet technology so users can download books, newspapers and blogs without being connected to a computer.
It made TIME magazine’s Top Ten Gadgets of 2008 (it was a late launch in 2007!) and it is estimated that about 500,000 were sold by the start of this year.
The latest model – Kindle 2 – hit the market earlier this year and the below video taken at its showcase launch by Gearlog provides a useful demonstration of its main features and shows how newspapers are displayed.
Kindle users who subscribe to a newspaper pay a monthly subscription fee (from about £4-£10) and then get new issues automatically downloaded to their device each day.
And there are plenty of titles which have signed up to this deal, including the Independent, Financial Times and The Times from the UK.
Other non-American newspapers available for subscription on the Kindle are Le Monde, the Irish Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine and the Shanghai Daily.
As for American newspapers and magazines, each month seems to bring news of more signing up to deliver their news via Kindle, including USA Today, Newsweek and The Oklahoman (full list available on Amazon).
And just this week, USA Today also signed up to have its blogs and online communities made available for Kindle subscribers.
Most of the buzz surrounding e-readers and their potential for the newspaper industry is related in particular to the Kindle 2, which has introduced some new features proving popular with its reporter users.
For Poynter Online blogger Amy Gahran, it’s the automatic text-to-speech function that offers a service she calls a “news radio”.
She writes: “The automated text-to-speech reader is a bit flat for fiction, narrative and essays that require significant emotional or rhetorical inflection - but it’s great for news.”
Gahran adds that “it’s pretty cool to be able to have stories from WSJ.com read aloud to me while I cook my veggie pesto omelet”.
The other innovation from Kindle 2 creating a lot of noise in the tech blogosphere is the introduction of Whispersync technology, enabling users to switch between different Kindle devices and keep the same page etc.
This free software means Kindle owners can read a book on their main device at home, then pick up where they left off on their iPhone while on the move.
Want to know more about Kindle 2 and its new functions? Hear it straight from the horse’s mouth in the below video, which shows Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos demonstrating the product and defending its price tag (£250).
The latest rumour surrounding Amazon is that the company is looking to launch a bigger-screen version of the Kindle in a bid to attract more magazine and newspaper publishers.
People who claim to have seen the new e-reader told the Wall Street Journal (subscription needed to access full story) that the large-screen Kindle could be out by the end of this year.
The e-reader device developed by Plastic Logic may not have reached the market yet (selected launch later this year, general release 2010) but it has already caused a stir among media types.
This might have something to do with its look – unlike the Kindle, it has not been developed primarily as an e-book reader but rather as a business document reader.
So the Plastic Logic Reader is bigger, thinner and lighter than its e-reader rivals – as shown in the below demo.
This e-reader may be thin but its makers claim it is particularly robust as it’s made entirely of plastic, and engineer Dean Baker demonstrated this claim to the BBC with a punch to the screen.
Put all this together and you’ve got an e-reader that attracted a lot of interest from newspaper publishers when the prototype did the rounds at trade shows last year.
Plastic Logic chief executive Richard Archuleta told the New York Times: “Even though we have positioned this for business documents, newspapers is what everyone asks for.”
And the firm has already sealed the deal on several content partnership deals with newspapers, including USA Today and the Financial Times.
Plastic Logic has also signed a deal with LibreDigital, which supplies digital content for newspaper publishers including Hearst Corp.
But the major one to watch will be Plastic Logic’s trial with the Detroit Media Partnership (DMP).
As part of the project, subscribers to e-newspaper content from DMP will not have to buy their own devices but will instead have the option to lease the Plastic Logic Reader through the subscription deal.
The success of such a scheme could help e-reader makers answer one of the main accusations from their detractors – that they are too expensive for the mainstream market.
iRex iLiad Reader & Digital Reader
Dutch company iRex Technologies is the maker of the iLiad Reader Book Edition and 2nd Edition, which are available in the UK from the iRex online shop for £400-£550.
iRex also offers a large format device with its new Digital Reader, which is designed with business users in mind and has a 10-inch display which can show A4 documents.
The A5-sized 2nd Edition has wireless internet connectivity like the Kindle and allows users to write electronic notes in the margins of documents.
The below video shows how newspapers are displayed on the 2nd Edition and gives an insight into some of the functionality (no sound though).
From 2007 it has offered a newspaper subscription with French publication Les Echos, in a move described by iRex as one which will “set the trend in the newspaper industry”.
According to the New York Times, Les Echos provides its iLiad subscribers with a daily edition as well as up to ten updated versions of the paper throughout the course of the day.
In March 2008, NRC Handelsblad became the first Dutch newspaper to sign up to delivery via an electronic paper device when it completed a content deal with the iLiad.
And the makers of the iLiad have promised that more content partnerships are on their way in the future.
It sounds like good news for the iLiad on the continent, but iRex has suffered a setback in the UK recently after Borders announced that it will stop selling the devices due to poor sales.
According to the Independent, “customers baulked at the high price” of the iLiad, so Borders is looking to stock a different reader by the end of this month.
Orange Read&Go
Still in the pilot stage, the Read&Go device from telecoms group Orange is described by its makers as a “mobile newspaper kiosk”.
The e-paper technology device is purpose-built for displaying newspapers and boasts wifi and 3G connectivity.
In a bid to test both the device and the potential appeal of e-newspapers, Read&Go was trialled last year in collaboration with seven French newspapers, including Le Monde, Le Parisien, Les Echos and L’Equipe.
The trial produced some promising results for the newspapers and the executives shared some of their findings at a conference in Paris.
Editors Weblog reports that researchers found people spent as much time reading content on the e-reader as they would on a printed newspaper, thus enhancing the appeal for advertisers.
This leads the Editors Weblog to conclude that a limited release is the likeliest next step for the Read&Go, but no word from Orange as yet.
Sony Reader
The Sony Reader was designed to be an e-book reader but merits a mention here as it’s one of the few high profile devices available in the UK (from Sony and Waterstone’s for about £200).
Lacking the wireless internet capability of the Kindle devices, the Sony Reader does offer more format choice as well as free blog subscriptions.
Here’s a good text and video review of the latest model from guardian.co.uk’s Jemima Kiss.
No newspaper subscriptions are yet available for the Sony device but who knows what will happen in the future with this one – worth watching.
Hearst E-reader?
With two large-screen e-readers on their way from Plastic Logic and Amazon (we think…), could the next one be coming from within the newspaper industry?
Yes it could, according to a recent Fortune article which quoted insiders from newspaper publisher Hearst Corp saying the company has been developing its own e-reader for launch this year.
The story cited sources claiming the device is designed for newspaper and magazines with a large-format screen, wireless download delivery and an easy-to-read display.
And it was also reported that Hearst, along with its development partners, would sell the e-readers to other publishers and take a proportion of the revenue generated from subscriptions.
The news has been greeted with a mixed response from media commentators, with Amy Gahran describing it as a “step in the direction”, yet also warning that it would perhaps have been wiser for Hearst to partner with an e-reader manufacturer rather than make the devices themselves.
Harsher words came from blogger Michael Jones, who wrote that “the e-reader idea as floated by Hearst is more of a last-ditch attempt to save the industry than an attempt to save a couple of Hearst papers or the Hearst chain.
“Moreover, it seems a slender thread on which to hang the entire American newspaper industry.”
On a more positive note, CNET News declared: “It looks as if the e-paper revolution is really about to start.”
And with three large-screen e-readers likely to be on the market by this time next year, that could prove to be a prescient declaration.
Smartphones As E-Readers
Before we move on to look at the e-readers of the future, mention should be made of devices with LCD displays which have e-reader capabilities.
There are a whole host of companies cropping up which provide the software and/or content for smartphone users to read e-books on their LCD screens.
And although some people may see a smartphone as an inferior e-reading device due to high power consumption and backlit screens, plenty of users are signing up for the software.
Among the e-reader software applications available is TextonPhone, which has over 30,000 e-books available, and Stanza, which can be used on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Also there’s the document reader software from Readdle and the Shortcovers app, which enables iPhone users to build up libraries of newspaper and magazine articles.
And as we saw earlier, Amazon now offers a free Kindle application for iPhones which works in conjunction with its own device.
So what’s a better buy for the e-book reading consumer? The Kindle with its e-ink display or the iPhone with its LCD screen?
According to ReadWriteWeb: “The Kindle does very few things with its black and white screen. It reads books, it checks some RSS feeds and gets the news... that’s about it.
“The iPhone, on the other hand, lets you do all of that, and pretty much anything else you can do on the Internet. And it’s a phone. And a portable media player.
“With sites like eBooks.com out there, which sells over 100,000 books, most in the PDF format that Readdle supports, theoretically the same content available on the Kindle is available on the iPhone.”
So which will win out between the purpose-built e-reader and the smartphone, only time will tell.
Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo summed it up nicely when he wrote: “Which display tech will win out may prove to be more economic than aesthetic, but ebook readers are here to stay.
“The presumption that everyone will eventually read books on an electronic display of some sort in the future is so fundamental I haven’t bothered to question it, mostly because nobody else does either.”
E- Readers – The Future
Colour for E-Paper
The future for e-ink is a colourful one according to insiders, who believe that the transition from black and white is only a year or so away.
E-Ink spokesman Sriram K Peruvemba told the New York Times that e-ink technology will be able to reproduce “newspaper-like colour” by 2010 (although full colour could be another year from then).
Other companies are also working on this technological step forward, but who might be putting up the money for such projects?
None other than media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who revealed at a recent industry show that News Corp. is considering investing in the production of a large-screen e-reader with colour display.
Flexible Screens
Rollable or flexible high-resolution display screens represent another target for e-reader manufacturers as they compete to produce an easily portable and robust device.
And one Dutch company says it has already achieved this with its creation of the world’s first “pocket ereader”.
The Readius is the size of a mobile phone with a rollable five-inch screen, which uses e-ink technology in its display and boasts wireless connectivity.
According to a New York Times review of the product from last year, “the screen looks just like a liquid crystal display, but can bend so flexibly that it can wrap around a finger”.
There’s no sign of it on the European market as yet despite a 2008 launch target, but it is expected to be made available at some stage this year.
Looking further ahead, designer Mayo Nissen took the opportunity last year to show off his ideas on what he envisions for the e-reader of the future.
Featured on the Editors Weblog, his design for the Guardian in 2015 introduces a new element where text would be revealed as the display screen is unfurled.
Visit the Design Blog to see a larger image of his vision for the Guardian of the future.
New and Improved LCD?
Developers are working on producing LCD screens to rival the readability of electronic paper displays.
And one company – Pixel Qi – says it has done just that and more, with designer Mary Lou Jepsen telling Gizmodo that its LCD screens are in fact more readable than e-paper displays.
She said the screens have all the advantages of the e-paper display, like sunlight readability, alongside LCD-only offerings such as full colour.
And they don’t have the disadvantages of standard LCD as backlighting can be switched off and the screens use a lot less power
The screens are scheduled for launch in the middle of this year, and Jepsen has predicted that “in 2010, LCDs designed for reading will overtake the electrophoretic (e-paper) display technology in the e-reader market”.
“Appgazines”
This is the term used by Josh Quittner in his TIME magazine article to describe a new kind of e-reader software from Adobe.
Adobe AIR allows users to view Flash-required web pages offline and the company has been working on applications for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times.
[Picture - Rafe Needleman/CNET]
Quittner believes that such applications are a kind of hybrid that “act more like computer programs than Web or printed pages”.
At a trade show last year Adobe showed off the results on a Mobile Internet Device from Chinese consumer electronics firm Aigo.
And the end product is impressive according to Quittner, noting that the IHT app “looks identical to but somehow better than the paper version of that newspaper. It feels alive”.
He also points out that the software can display colour images and does not need a constant connection like a web page, so users can read the application wherever they like once downloaded.
Apple & E-Readers
Despite the fact that Apple supremo Steve Jobs has claimed he has no interest in e-readers, there are lots of whisperings about Apple developing some kind of large-screen device.
TIME magazine reports that “Apple is rumored to be working on an iPod Touch-like device with a 7-in. or 9-in. (18 cm or 23 cm) screen, big enough to comfortably read”.
If the stories prove to be true, then the hallowed iPod of e-readers could be yet another innovative i-invention.
And The Economist states that the infrastructure is all in place for Apple to join the e-book market: “There are already millions of iPhones and touch-screen iPods in circulation, and the company has long been rumoured to be working on a larger “tablet” device.
“Selling e-books and newspapers via iTunes, which already has millions of paying customers, would be simple.”
E-Readers – The Salvation of Newspapers?
So how much notice should newspapers really be taking of this relatively new phenomenon?
A lot, according to a number of media commentators and industry analysts who believe that e-readers offer a solution to the industry’s biggest headache - how to get people to pay for digital content.
Digital trend spotter Steve Rubel outlined this belief in a recent blog post penned as an open letter to media companies.
He writes: “The good news is your great white hope has arrived. It’s the Amazon Kindle.
“My unsolicited advice is to jump in now. This could be your last chance to monetise content.”
In essence, Rubel’s argument is that the Kindle is like the iPod in that “it actually encourages people to pay for content rather than get it for free”.
Despite the abundance of free content on the Web, Rubel maintains that some people will still pay to get their favourite things - “The secret sauce is easy and instantaneous delivery of content as soon as it ships.”
TIME’s Josh Quittner agrees on this point: “It’s true that as long as we in the media ask you to read our stuff on your computer screens, you won’t pay for it.
“But if we deliver that content for a small fee on devices that can surpass the pleasures of reading on paper, you will.”
The argument that people will pay for convenience has also been made by The Economist.
Its article, “Electronic Books and Newspapers: An iTunes Moment” states that consumers are likely to pay for content that arrives overnight and can then be read anywhere.
And it contends that the impact on newspapers could be huge if e-readers become a hit with the market.
“If this approach took off, newspapers would no longer depend on advertisers and could wind down their paper editions. (They could also quietly scale back their free websites.)”
Amy Gahran is perhaps a bit more cautious on this point, but she too agrees that devices like the Kindle 2 could be the “game-changers for online and mobile news”.
“That is, if online news operations start taking e-reader technology seriously and work with Amazon and other companies to improve e-reader news delivery.”
And this is the crucial point made by them all – we are witnessing the beginning of the e-reader story and how it ends with regards to newspapers is firmly in the hands of the publishers.
Resources & Reviews
This New York Times article provides a useful overview of e-readers currently on the market or about to launch.
And Poynter Online has a page linking to e-reader related stories from the last couple of years.
Plus a round-up of some of the ongoing projects exploring the views of the news consumer towards e-readers is available on the Editors Weblog.
If you want to know more about the individual devices, there are lots of reviews posted on the Web and here are links to a sample few.
Kindle 2
Kindle2reviews.com – has a round-up of lots of reviews including video reviews
News reporting via Twitter and AudioBoo became the norm last week as journalists used social media tools to tell the story of the G20 Summit in London.
The majority of the mainstream media got in on the action as social media software provided an ideal way for field-based reporters to provide real-time updates on events at the summit and on the streets of the City.
According to BBC tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones: “It does seem as though just about everyone involved in G20 - from the politicians to the journalists, from bloggers to demonstrators - has been snapping, filming recording everything in site and uploading it to the web to share with the world.”
Several online newspapers provided coverage using CoverItLive blogs, including Times Online and Sky News.
On the Sky live blog, correspondents sent text updates and links to photos uploaded to TwitPic.
Meanwhile, the Times Online’s live blog featured embedded photos and eye-witness posts from members of the public.
On Guardian.co.uk, award-winning blogger Dave Hill posted regular updates to his London blog about the action on the ground at the Bank of England.
And the BBC offered multimedia coverage through its Live Map, which linked to geotagged video, text and photographic content.
The BBC also pulled together links to all its G20 related content on a Live Text Page which featured links to news articles and blog posts from journalists as they were published.
An abundance of content from citizen journalists appeared throughout the day on content-sharing sites such as Flickr, and a group of students from London’s City University used their mobiles and social media tools to provide extensive coverage of the street protests (HT – cybersoc.com).
For more on this, journalism.co.uk and the BBC’s dot.life blog have round-ups of how social media was used by the mainstream and alternative media during last week’s events.
Here’s an interesting slideshow about the impact of digital networking upon the ways we communicate in the modern era.
It’s taken from a presentation recently given by David Armano, the vice president of Experience Design at Critical Mass and a new media blogger.
The Micro-Sociology of Networks considers social media and networking, participatory journalism, blogging, and branding among many other aspects of the digital age.
The BBC has unveiled a beta version of its latest mobile site boasting new customisation and localisation features.
Users can adapt the homepage so they can directly access their favourite content and can also create a localised version of the news, weather and TV sections.
In addition, the site appears in different forms and image sizes depending upon the users’ handsets and network capabilities.
The site “is the first milestone in an ambitious roadmap for the development of our service to be contextual, social, personal, immediate, device and location aware,” said Ulyssa MacMillan, executive producer for BBC Mobile.
Richard Titus, BBC future media controller, also stated that the corporation’s next step would be to adopt locative media tools for its mobile offerings.
He told The Guardian: “In a way, the BBC is one of the safest organisations to share your location with.
“We take privacy very seriously and there’s no malicious or commercial intent - we just want to make the experience better.”
A journalist has been granted permission to provide coverage of a federal court case via Twitter updates.
Ron Sylvester has previously Twittered a murder trial from a state courthouse, but this is the first time that he has been allowed to post Tweets from a federal courtroom, reports Editor & Publisher.
The Witchita Eagle journalist is reporting on the racketeering trial via his Twitter feed, and he has revealed that among his followers is the father of one of the defendants.
According to E&P, Sylvester’s tweets “have recounted testimony and offered some courtroom color”.
The Eagle’s executive editor has asserted that Sylvester’s use of Twitter as a court reporting tool has proved effective.
“He certainly has not sacrificed accuracy, quality and standards,” said Sherry Chisenhall.
She added: “There is an immediacy that has been great for our audience.”
Here’s a little experiment – next time you’re commuting on a train or bus, or waiting for a flight, look at your fellow travellers. How many are reading newspapers? Now how many are fiddling with their mobile phones?
