MASTERCLASSES

Sunday 8 March 2009

Making a web newspaper feel a bit more like print


Here's a smart idea from the New York Times. They've invented an article skimmer - which has yet to be given a name - that makes looking at the paper on the web just a little bit closer to browsing through a Sunday paper over brunch.

It offers a very easy way to scan a paper and pick out the bits that you want to read more about.

1 comment:

Editor/writer/Moderator-Art of Reform and Rebellion said...

The solution to correcting the current problem with the press is to use the web to move the Printing press to readers home. Print is not dead --- reading detailed information on a large or small screen is a thoroughly unsatisfactory solution.

The Web can transmit screened information from multiple sources. capture it each evening on a cheap printer with cheap paper and cheap toner. The aggregator gets paid a small fee for constantly improving the selection of information and seeking out new customers. Each journalist and press service gets a few cents for each story printed on the home service.

The Aggregator becomes the Editor
and the customer of the service gets to ask for advertisements for things they are temporarily interested in from manufactures or Craigs list.

Everybody who produces gets paid and the cost of this home delivered special interest paper will end up being about the same as a home delivered paper that has lots of things that are not of interest.

Print thorough electronic delivery to home has multiple advantages over the screen.
Print allows you to scan rapidly, hand other people the stories you find of interest.
The duplicte electronic storage of the "paper" sent to the customer can be searched for as long as desired. Important local state and National news can be collected by the aggregator/editor.

NYT skimmer gets us part way there but is is still on screen and it is only one source. An aggregator/editor can pull from multiple sources.

Peter F. Bahnsen