Right, I keep forgetting about this thing. Here's what should be my seventh post. And here is an article on the declining magazine industry.
Technological progress is a game-changer. Much innovation consists not just gadgets, but the streamlining of an otherwise inefficient system. This is great for the consumer, and rather unfortunate for whoever just found themselves with a superfluous job. As industrial machinery progressed, fewer and fewer untrained laborers could produce more and more. Today the Internet provides a new paradigm, one that increasingly renders traditional print sources obsolete. What's more, the prominent news sources are often more likely to receive online readership than the local ones. As such, we have seen traditional print media suffering as newspaper and magazine readers turn to their computers.
As much as I'd like to see the trash that is the average popular magazine disappear, it's more likely that many will succeed in changing their format. It will be some time before print magazines entirely disappear, if ever, but technological progress is set to make them increasingly irrelevant. Most notably, electronic paper. The next few generations of products such as the Amazon Kindle are likely to revolutionize the publishing industry.
What do you think of the economic incentives and disincentives of this process? What other technologies do you think will transform traditional business practices in the foreseeable future?
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To think of a world without books, magazines and newspapers will make anyone sad.
ReplyDeleteIt can't be very good for markets either, you lose so much production/employment on so many levels. printers, distributers, writers..
how does the internet change the GDP?
I think there's huge incentive for paper-based products to adapt to consumer's wants in as many ways as possible. As Mike stated, many customers can't imagine reading everything through a screen, so industries that cut the majority of their print products or abandon print altogether are sure to loose customers (such is the sad story of the Detroit Free Press). However, we all know that industries who refuse to adapt are going to have little to no presence in the industry in a few years.
ReplyDeleteOther important factors in this equation are cost and the apparent value of the product. Since the internet has made it incredibly easy to obtain any sort of information for free, these products have to be selling more than just news and advice columns, and they have to be selling it for cheap. Some newspapers can make bank off prestige alone, but other smaller ventures have to get a little more creative if they want to make it through times like these. My music monthly of choice, Paste, offers digital subscriptions at 99 cents per month, with an additional 99 cents per ad on. These ad ons include a print edition, a sampler CD, a sampler DVD, and VIP Access to their website. With the emergence of ego-centric Facebook and Myspace culture, people want their products to be tailored to them. I think Paste is a fine example of both product that's friendly to all consumers and that will (hopefully) make it through the economic and paper industry downturn to come out on top. I hope more magazines and newspapers design customer-friendly subscriptions like this so that there are plenty of options for readers to choose from in the future.
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I read one of the last newspaper publications that still have an increasing circulation, the wall street journal. And in no way would i switch to an electronic copy of the same publication, theres something entirely different about having to go back and forth on the internet and sorting through categories that simply does not match the feeling of having everything about the world for the day in your hand at once, all thats required is a flip of the page. I do read internet publications, mainly MSNBC.com which is formatted well and offers a nice format that allows me to get to the sections i want easily, but take it from a dedicated consumer, some newspaper publications will never die!
ReplyDeleteI just think there's something nifty (for lack of a better word) reading a newspaper. I'd prefer reading out of a book/magazine/newspaper rather than online. The only time I actually 'read' online is wikipedia and that is only because I can't find a tangible source of what I need. It is very unfortunate indeed.
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I think that it will be a LONG time until print editions cease productions for a few reasons. First of all, a newspaper is cheap AND mobile; to read a newspaper electronically on-the-go one must have some sort of expensive mobile internet device, whereas a newspaper costs about 75 cents per issue. Second, an experienced newspaper reader who understands how the pages are numbered can navigate a newspaper much easier than a website. Third, people cannot edit a website i.e. write on them or cut out a piece and post it on their wall. The fact that a newspaper is a hard copy distinguishes it from an internet news source. Fourth, as Kiran has already stated, people don't like reading off of screens for long periods of time, and reading a newspaper is "nifty."
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do think that electronic print media will become more prevalent in the economy, which can be a good thing if it doesn't take away from the paper print media industry because it will reduce paper consumption and, thus, save trees.
While I don't care so much about the magizines, I can't imagine a world where everything that we read is read online. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I really don't like off of the computer screen. Also, if a change like this were to occur I could see the immediate result being most likely negative, however, I suppose it is possible tht in the long run there could some benefits.
ReplyDeleteI just want to say I really hate to read little texts on a computer screen...it's bad for health...and people related to printing industry will probably lose their jobs. It is convenient to get information online, but I can't imagine the situation that students totally rely on internet instead of using actual textbooks.
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