Monday, March 8, 2010

Newspaper and the Internet



Fact: Finally, after centuries of cutting down forests to make newspapers, we can see the end of road for the newspaper. Will it be able to evolve? Or will it die the way of the typewriter? They need to find new revenue and more creative ways to engage their subscribers.

It’s no secret that newspapers and magazines are hurting for revenue. Why would someone be willing to receive for fee, when you can download it 5-8 hours earlier online for free? What can be done to place a tourniquet on the financial and subscription bleeding and hemorrhaging money the way they currently suffer from?

What’s missing? Newspaper executives are missing out on a huge opportunity to use their print operations as a supplemental piece to their online edition. Just think of the printed newspaper as a re-cap of the day's hottest topics and most relevant issues. The possibilities are infinite; the online news model is a source for user-generated content and feedback, which builds on the social networking aspect.

News travels faster over the Internet than print media. It has no constraints or boundaries and travels around the world in a few seconds. Newspapers have to start taking advantage of the vast opportunities that are out there in the world of Internet.

Newspaper and the Internet: What the newspaper industry has to be doing is to adopt ways that could help them improvise in the digital era. Some of the potential ways are:

1) Enhance social networking features- Building a huge network of friends, sharing news amongst themselves, commenting and raising debates on topics or current affairs etc… would really drive users to be more interested in News online rather than news on paper.

2) Customize news – Letting a user decide what he/she would see in their own news dashboard, with the options of customizing them further would potentially increase the flow of users towards online news.

3) Easy to use, best designed, yet powerful platforms – A easy to use and well designed platform would generate a positive feeling in the minds of users and would urge them to take a second look at news that’s available online.

4) Interactive features, maps, graphics, slideshows, audio slides, video interfaces etc… would help newspapers achieve a greater feeling in the minds of their online readers or visitors.

If the newspaper industry is willing to spend their time and money or conducting researches on how they would enhance their presence over the internet, they would be well off and away from extinction.