Category: Newspaper

There’s something cool about the physical newspaper…

Lauren’s up in NYC this weekend for a work conference.   So, I’ve been chilling in DC.  This morning I wanted to get out of the condo.  So… I went to Eastern Market, got a Sunday NY Times and found a corner of Peregrine Espresso where I could relax, read, and sip on a latte.

As much as I love technology, there’s something cool about the physical newspaper, especially when you can read all of it.   When I read news online, I tend to just read things about my specific areas of interest.   If I read the newspaper, I read everything that the editors find important.

A physical newspaper also forces you to slow down and just read.  With a physical newspaper, I find myself more apt sit down and read a 1200 word article vs skimming over a few paragraphs on my iPhone in Flipboard on my way to the office.

Do you read a physical newspaper?  Why do you love it?

News Readership Increases on Mobile Phones

I thought this was pretty fascinating.  TechCrunch has a story on some new comScore numbers around Mobile Web usage.

The number of people who access news and information daily on their mobile phones doubled from 10.8 million in January, 2008 to 22.4 million in January, 2009.

With the news industry reaching for any ray of sunshine that it can, it’s interesting that one of the biggest growth areas is the mobile phones.  It shows that people like to be able to consume news when they’re on the go.  It also shows the importance of allowing users to consume content where they want it.


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NY Times iPhone App Offline Support is Awesome!! Works Perfectly.

I take the subway to work everyday. During that time period, I’m completely without mobile reception. I have an iPhone and AT&T and that doesn’t work in the subway tunnels.

So I was kind of excited when the NY Times announced that they were adding offline support for their iPhone app. I tried it on the subway today and it worked perfectly.

Now, I wish that Apple would add offline capability to the iPhone version of Safari so that I could do this with just a normal mobile Web site.


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Renewed My Subscription to the Washington Post Dead Tree Edition…

So… yesterday, I got a letter from the Washington Post saying that I needed to renew my subscription for daily deliver of the Washington Post.  I opted to go for it.  I re-upped for the next 6 months.

Is it weird that I enjoy reading the physical newspaper?  I feel like I don’t see many other 24 year olds walking down the street with the newspaper under there arm.

For my dad, the smell of newspaper ink on his hands is a religious experience. (He’s a former newspaper reporter.)

For me, I just like something about how news is presented to me in a newspaper.  It’s not flung at me all at once.  It’s progressively exposed to me a few stories at a time.

What do you guys think?  Any of you read the physical newspaper?  Any of you pay for it?

I realize that at some point that printing the physical newspaper will be a non-profitable business for them.  I guess, by that time, we’ll all be walking around with Amazon Kindles.


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An Afternoon at the Newseum

Infront of a Berlin Wall Guard Tower

This Fourth of July weekend I have the pleasure of my parent’s company in Washington DC.

When thinking about fun things we could do,  I thought of DC’s brand new museum the Newseum.  I figured it’d be of extra interest to my father being he is a former newspaper reporter.

The Newseum was awesome.  It blew my expectations.

There was one portion of the museum where they walked you through hundreds of years of newspapers and reporting artifacts.

Within the museum there was a corner that was devoted to the effects of the Web and technology on news reporting.  This was particularly of interest to me because it’s the world that I live in.

They had the Nokia N95 used by one of the grad students at the Virginia Tech shootings.  They had an Amazon Kindle on display.  There was also a room where you could watch videos about different major themes in the Online news revolution.  We watched one on blogging pleased to see the smiling face of my friend Jim Long.

I wonder how the museum will change or evolve as the Internet becomes an increasing role in the state of the News.

The nightly television news is fading, newspaper readership is fading, but people are moving to the Web.

Have you been to the Newseum?  What’d you think?

(Photo above was taken by my dad at the Newseum. We’re standing infront of a Berline Wall guard tower.)

What’s the future of the newspaper?

As I’ve mused in the past, I don’t think the paper newspaper translates very well into the online space.  With the news of the New York Times cutting 100 of its newsroom jobs,  I start thinking about who/what will be the future of the industry.  Obviously depending on a paper newspaper and paper ads isn’t enough.

More and more I think the future is a personlized start page, like iGoogle or Netvibes.

What does a newspaper?… It takes a bunch of different disparate sources of information from around the world and aggregates them into one convenient space.

What does a personalized start page do? … It takes a bunch of different disparate sources of information from around the world and aggregates them into one convenient space.

Widgets are The Future of The Comic Strip

Growing up, reading comic strips was my major reason to read the newspaper.  To this day, I still enjoy reading the comics within the Style section of the Washington Post.  Mainly, I read Garfield, Peanuts, and Dilbert.

But I have the feeling that the physical newspaper isn’t long for this world.  (I think my home town newspaper is getting small enough that it will qualify as a pamphlet.)

People are turning to the Web for their information.  Web applications like personalized home pages are becoming the view port into the world.  The Web can give me what I want… where I want it

If the comic strip wants to succeed, it needs to be modular so that its content  can be syndicated in whatever environment a user desires.

Well… Dilbert has done just that. There is now the Official Dilbert Widget.

You can post the Dilbert widget to your personalized home page, your social network, or your blog side bar easily. From within the widget, you can search view today’s comic strip (pane by pane) or you can view past comic strips.

I think it’s wonderful. It’s on my iGoogle page.

And… Yes, the Official Dilbert Widget is powered by Clearspring Technologies. (Disclosure: I’m joining the staff at Clearspring.)

What do you think of the Dilbert Widget?  Have you installed it somewhere yet?  Could you make it better?  How could you take the future of publishing comic strips to an even better level?

Lansing State Journal Web Site Puts Soft Porn Advertisement on the Editorial Page

Lansing State Journal Has Girls Gone Wild Online Ad

While sitting around the breakfast table with my family this Thanksgiving weekend, my dad pointed out something shocking to me that he found while reading the Lansing State Journal’s (our hometown newspaper) editorial page. There was an advertisement for the soft porn videos Girls Gone Wild. (see screen shot above)

I’m shocked that a newspaper would promote something that is so flagrantly offensive and degrading.  The publisher of the newspaper should apologize for allowing this to take place.