Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review

The Kindle DX or Plastic Logic’s eReader might be the savior of newspapers – However, there might not be much left to save. Let’s look at the rapidly accelerating demise of newspapers -

Advertising Sales are falling precipitously

Newsosaur (excellent blog) points out that advertising sales fell by an unprecedented 28.3% in 2009′s first 3 months. Furthermore -

1. Online sales fell 13.4%. 
2. Classifieds fell 42.3%. 
3. Employment Classified Advertising fell 67.4%.
4. Newspapers Sales have been falling since April 2006, and the rate is accelerating.

Newspapers themselves are dying

Preethi Dumpala at Silicon Alley Investor has an excellent article up titled ‘The Year the Newspaper Died’ that points out that in 2009 we already have -

1. 105 newspapers shuttered.
2. 10,000 newspaper jobs lost.
3. 23 of the top 25 newspapers’ circulation declined 7% to 20% (Interestingly, WSJ saw an increase).

 For a really in-depth view, take a look at paper cuts, a site that shows you -

1. All newspaper lay-offs in google maps.
2. All newspapers that have closed (also in google maps).
3. Newspapers that have switched to online versions (just 8 so far)
4. News, rumors and 2007 and 2008 maps.

They actually list 10,293+ jobs lost in the first 6 months of 2009.

Enter Kindle DX, Plastic Logic eReader, iPhone

An ereader like the Kindle DX does a few important things -

1. It functions as a channel where people are used to paying for content.  
2. It allows newspapers to solve the ‘immediacy of news’ problem by offering news as it happens.  
3. It greatly reduces distribution costs.

The newspaper moguls complaining about having to give Amazon 70% ought to just pick another device, and it’d help if they stopped giving away their content for free online and on the iPhone.

Newspapers still have the content and the brand

Online, Content is King. Reputation is nearly as important. Newspapers have heaps of both.

Take a look at Google itself – all their ads surround the content sites. People wouldn’t visit if the sites that provide content weren’t there. Neither would people visit as much if they didn’t believe the whole ‘Do No Evil’ branding.

Channels like the Internet, the Kindle, iPhones, and cellphones give newspapers the ability to morph into entities that provide better news. They have the opportunity to -

1. Provide better news. 
2. Provide better news instantaneously. 
3. Make prices lower for customers. 
4. Cut costs by doing things more efficiently and with less people.
5. Stop running ads that manipulate customers.
6. Focus on providing information on products their customers are already interested in.

Instead, newspapers are focusing on profits, the unfulfilled promise of online advertising, and forgetting customers.

Newspapers need to forget Advertising

Advertising to support newspaper costs isn’t a great idea. The Internet is creating an environment where customers are no longer sheep.

Advertising and manipulation doesn’t really work with informed customers. Read Jakob Nielsen’s post on Banner Blindness which points out that the only way to get Internet users to click on ads is to pretend the ads are content -

Users almost never look at anything that looks like an advertisement, whether or not it’s actually an ad.

…. we discovered a fourth approach that breaks one of publishing’s main ethical principles by making the ad look like content:

• The more an ad looks like a native site component, the more users will look at it.
• Not only should the ad look like the site’s other design elements, it should appear to be part of the specific page section in which it’s displayed.

Not even the most popular sites like YouTube and Facebook are being able to get online ads to work. Do newspapers really think they can succeed where the best online companies are failing?

Is there a solution? Is the Kindle DX part of it?

1. For the newspaper industry to support its current structure and size – No.
2. For a more efficient newspapers industry that stops buying the mantra of ‘give it away for free, and make money off of ads’ – Yes.

Newspapers need to do a few things at the same time -

1. Minimize the cost of producing and distributing quality content, without reducing the quality.  
2. Charge at least as much as it costs to create the news.
3. Put their customers first.
4. Treat everything except the news product as an enabler, and not as some critical part of their DNA they cannot live without.

The Kindle DX or PL eReader or any other device or technology can’t help newspapers as long as they keep devaluing their own worth and putting customers last.