Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Four years ago I wrote an article about the fast approaching
demise of the print news business. That day is just about upon us and
judging by the actions of Hearst, one the largest newspaper publishers
in the world, many old world media players are still flailing around
punching air trying to figure out how to stay in business.
The latest reported attempt by Hearst, which owns
more than 60 newspapers, is plans for an e-reader along the lines of
Amazon's Kindle but bigger to accommodate the traditional newspaper
format and flexible so that it can be folded. Presumably, owners of
these Hearst readers could download a variety of content, including
news.
In addition, Hearst has reportedly signaled its desire to lock up at least some of the content and make customers pay for it.
When I hear stories like this I can't help but shake my head and wonder
what planet the print news generation of publishers think they're
living on. Perhaps they have forgotten that the 20th Century finished a
decade ago.
First let's dispense with the paid content idea. Even print news
stalwarts have known for many years that consumers will not pay
publishers for news content - not when they can get advertising
supported news for free.
The question then is whether consumers will be prepared to pay for an
e-news reader? In an era when everybody already have mobile phones,
probably not.
One could imagine that an A4 sized flexible plastic e-news reader could
eventually be a viable device for the home, office lobby coffee table
or as a service for patrons of coffee shops.
However, such an e-news reader would have to be just be another Internet news delivery device.
The idea that consumers or coffee shops would be prepared to buy (or
subscribe to) a particular e-news reader from a specific publisher like
they used to buy their favourite newspaper is a bit of a stretch.
In this era of Internet news, consumers are used to switching between
different news sites to get different perspectives of the same story.
It would be a risky play to lock content on a news website and only
make it available on a pay-per-view e-reader. However, for print news
publishers these are desperate times and no doubt someone will give it
a try.
Eventually, all news publishers will come to understand that to stay in
business they will have to work on making their content delivery model
consistent with today's new media environment. Returning to the "good
old days" by attempting to repackage an obsolete news format using new
technology and trying to convince people to pay for it is a pipe dream.
David Bass
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