Frank Aherns has an interesting article in the WaPo discussing how Nervous, Newspapers Look to Technology for Alternate Ways to Put the News in Your Hands.Washington Post
What do you think? Here's an excerpt:
Would you be reading this story if it were displayed on a 2-by-2-inch screen on your BlackBerry?
How about if it were electronically printed on a video scroll that spooled a few inches out of the side of your cell phone? Could you tell what was in the tiny picture?
Would you read this story if it were electronically printed on a paper-thin video screen the size of a tabloid newspaper, or maybe something bigger, like The Washington Post, and resembling a vinyl placemat, like the image you see under these words? What if this new electronic paper could be folded under your arm like your dad's sports section or rolled up inside your yoga mat?
As newspapers fight declining circulation and face rising newsprint costs -- and their corporate owners demand wider profit margins -- editors, publishers, reporters and technologists have worked over the past few years to devise new, paperless ways to deliver the news.
But the change stretches beyond the physical delivery system. Reread the preceding paragraph. The tone is formal and authoritative. It is aloof and addresses no one in particular, as in a textbook or a lecture. It is newspapery.
The two paragraphs above it are chatty and inquisitive, provocative rather than definitive. They call attention to themselves and speak directly to you. Their tone is usually not considered appropriate in a newspaper, and certainly not atop a news story. Their tone is more at home on the Internet, with blogs and discussion groups and webzines
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