Print is Dead. Long Live Print.

The numbers don’t lie. The entire publishing industry is dying.  Ad revenue plummeting. Circulation is down. Distribution outsourced. Newspapers are closing. Magazines disappearing. Massive layoffs continuing. They blame the internet.  They blame television.  I blame the industry leaders, for not seeing it coming a decade ago.

Look at the basic issue: Internet content is reducing the value of printed content, with none of the overhead, but without the same lucrative profit model either.  The problem wasn’t the internet. Until recently, the internet has been trapped inside beige boxes on people’s desks. The power cord and ethernet cable mere shackles keeping us from enjoying one of the best aspects of print media – PORTABILITY. 

For over a decade, I’ve been talking with colleagues about a digital newspaper. A show on Discovery back in the early 2000s showed a piece of fabric, the size of a large handkerchief, capable of reproducing a digital display. I was blown away… but much like the jetpack, I have seen nothing of this technological gem since.  I expected it to revolutionize newspapers and magazines.  Using the same blink technology your credit card uses, you would simply tap your digital paper again the publication’s nameplate at the newsstand or bookstore and the latest issue would be yours, for the retail cover price.  Or you’d simply sync up the device with your online subscriptions, managed through an application like iTunes or an RSS reader. I’ve seen footage of ePaper displays which should be in the market in a couple years, fingers crossed, but will the publishing industry embrace it?

The technological capability is present, but where is the marketplace innovation?

So perhaps the technology to make ePaper cheap and portable is still a couple years away. But in the meantime, how has the print publishing industry, controlled by a handful of companies, been unable to find and agree upon a profitable digit model?  After watching the music industry take years fighting it’s epic battle with Napster, only to find itself largely, if not entirely impotent against and victimized by digital piracy on bit torrent networks, you’d have thought industry leaders would have moved quickly to protect their content.  They didn’t, and as a result, both of these industries find themselves slaves to Apple and Amazon.  The opportunity these publishers lost in book, newspaper, and magazine ad sales by failing to take control over their own content is staggering.  It’s a failure of vision, and for that we must blame those higher up within the industry.  Wonder what that says about the value of an M.B.A. these days…?

Studies have shown that people are willing to pay for worthwhile content. I listen to most of my music on my computer, but i still buy the actual CD… not only for the album artwork, but the higher quality sound on my stereo, or so I can import it at higher quality for play on my desktop machine (complete with Monsoon speakers and subwoofer).  I want my music to sound good. I want to hear the highs and lows, not a digital hiss. The publishing world failed to realize that their audience would gladly pay for their expertly written content, and that the same small price tag would help raise their voices above that very same digital hiss.

Apple’s clear vision and strategy, coupled with the fantastic music app SoundJam (since bought and renamed iTunes) and a handheld technological marvel, the iPhone, has clearly made them the ideal case study.  Sadly, the iPhone’s small size works against it here, and a larger display seems a must. Amazon has introduced it’s Kindle, a fantastic product for 2003, but an absolute joke compared to the iPhone.  Sony’s Reader is a better solution, and I’ve found it much better than the Kindle, but still lacking the sizzle that Apple manages to capture.  What’s the worst aspect of the Kindle is it’s outdated gray on gray display.  By removing the cover design, typefaces, and all elements of design from their eBooks, they’ve removed some of the charm and appeal associated with physical books.  By not embracing kinesthetics, they have failed to include some fantastic features, like the glossary feature you see on the New York Times website.  Added features like this is just the sizzle the Kindle lacks.

With the rise of kinesthetic, lightweight, portable devices now commonplace, it will hopefully be just a matter of time before the industry catches up, and a new business model catches on.  Let’s just hope they are smart enough to do it right, because their track record of innovation definitely reveals a short-sighted vision, at very best.

So I guess the real question is… How long until Apple introduces an eReader that saves the publishing industry?

Addendum

Looks like I didn’t have to wait terribly long. Apple introduced the iPad in May and it has really changed everything.  Analysts predict tablets will outsell desktops within 2 years… statistics that would have seemed unthinkable when I penned this entry.  My how things have changed.  Long Live Print!