Paper magazines online
Q: How much slower do you read with your head up? A: 25%
So reading online is more difficult than reading print with your head down. Who reads online? Not many, we scan when online. We are actively seeking specific information. We don’t read cover to cover.
Putting up entire newspapers to read online will never work. Putting forward options (in a correctly formatted email) to find out certain specific pieces of information that are in a newspaper or magazine will work.
Delivering old messages through the new medium of the web will never work…like petrol in a diesel car. I got an email today which had Active X in it so I got the usual warning but opened it all the same. It’s hard enough to get a plain text or HTML email opened so who uses Active X…a suicide publisher?
Anybody who believes the web can provide a straight substitute for print has failed to understand why the web is different and why today’s information seekers want it in a different format. The web is a pull medium, not a push medium.
Poor publishing quality…is this why so many newspapers are going bust? No, it’s because their customers are already ahead of the game and have gone online with their ads. So it’s catch up time for newspaper owners! But you will only catch them with a new offering, not an imitation of an old offering.
Till soon,
TWC