Anyone concerned about advertising on a local level is interested in the survival of newspapers. Will the print edition go away? Will they go completely online? How do we best reach local consumers?
If you have a Kindle or you’re going to buy the iPad, you’ve noticed that they offer subscriptions to newspapers, delivered right to your device. For example, The Boston Globe is available for only $9.99 a month. Are e-readers the way for newspapers to charge for content while saving on printing and distribution costs? Is this the way for newspapers to survive?
Here’s the problem, e-readers all have wireless connections to the internet, they have browsers built-in (Kindle has lousy browser while iPad from I’ve heard has a great browser) where the information for The Boston Globe is only a click away and it’s free. So, why would I pay for a subscription?
As long as e-readers have internet connections, I don’t see how they are any different than trying to sell me an online subscription to my local newspaper. And so far, that idea isn’t working to well as this post from Slashdot about a newspaper on Long Island confirms. After three months they only sold 35, $5 per month subscriptions.
Ok, that’s not going to work.
I agree completely with you. Newspapers are struggling to sell their papers these days-it’s a topsy turvy world right now, leaving so many questions about the future of print media.
I think that within the next ten years we will move away from traditional paper and ink technology and get all of our news on devices. Until then more and more newspapers of all sizes will probably be forced to charge for reading them online.