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Will iPod Touch Really Kill Off Newspapers?
The always interesting Jeff Jarvis has suggested in his column in The Guardian that the ‘iPod moment has arrived for newspapers‘. What he’s referring to is that point in time when a technological development fundamentally changes a traditional business model, usually at the expense of those who have profited from it over the years.
For music that moment was the popularity of the iPod, and the rise in downloading that went with it; we can still see the effects of that moment in things like Radiohead’s decision to allow fans to set the price they pay for their new album, which we discussed last week. Jarvis feels that the same thing may now have happened for newspapers (even if we haven’t realised it yet) and that the catalyst is the same – the iPod, or to be precise, the iPod touch.
His argument, and it is a valid one, is that the iPod touch is not simply an MP3 player (or even an AA3 player to be precise): instead, he feels that it is simply a browser, and one with permanent connectivity, which happens to play music downloads, but which also works very well for reading editorial on the move. Therefore, he argues, newspapers will soon have hadtheir day, and it is essential that publishers make sure that their content is designed for internet users.
Whilst I would definitely agree with his second point (and anyone looking for advice on how to create web-friendly editorial can find some guidance here), I still struggle to accept his first. To explain why, I’ll give you some examples.
Tomorrow I’m flying up to Glasgow to speak to some clients about how they can make use of social media. Before we take off I will, along with everyone else on board, be instructed to turn off all electrical devices. At that point I’ll put away my iPod and pull out a book (or a magazine, or newspaper). What would I do if these options weren’t open to me? Read the in-flight menu?
Or take my plans for Wednesday, when I will be traveling back from an internal conference by train. This will require me to get a train from North Essex into London, a tube across town, and then another train home. Whilst the battery on my iPod is easily up to this, devices such as the iPod phone have much shorter battery-lives. What would I do if this were to die on me, with several hours of travelling still to go? Again, I’d probably turn to my handy little pocket sized piece of dead-tree.
Whilst none of this is meant as a suggestion that the publishing industry doesn’t have some rough times ahead, I would refer anyone expecting the medium to die out, back to a response in The Guardian’s Ask Jack column a while back; a reader was asking where they couldfind a light & easy to use reader, as they liked to download content. One respondent suggested a revolutionary device that allowed people to access content whenever & wherever they wanted, and which was also light & easy to use.
The name of this device? A book.
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- 8 October @ 11:15 amIn the last couple of years, the ‘death of the newspaper’ seems to have taken hold of the current cultural imagination with just as much force as Roland Barthes’ ‘death of the author’ did in the late 1960s and early 1970s (the interesting parallels, though numerous, are too complex to touch on here). However, my initial response to the question posed above would be: not in the next 50 years at least.
Jarvis quoted Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams in his piece: “When you have a web browser in your pocket, a printed newspaper is redundant.” Well, call me old fashioned, but I have had a fully web enabled phone in my pocket for the last four months – granted, not the wonderous iPhone – and yet I still buy a newspaper on a daily basis. Until improvements in supporting technology can catch up with these devices (erradicating electronic interference on planes, eternal battery life, 3G mobile signal made available on the London Underground etc.), we will continue to rely on traditional media to carry us through where new media fails.
In theory, I fundamentally agree with Alan Rusbridger’s notion that an ‘iPod moment’ for newspapers is inevitable (although, if he is using the eradication of the traditional music industry as the blueprint, this ‘moment’ may in reality span a number of years). However, perhaps it is not the invention or initial emergence of a suitable mass-market device (such as the iPhone) which marks this ‘moment’, but the point at which it becomes ‘quite normal’ to own and use one on a daily basis – with a simultaneous complete rejection of the printed form. The iPod moment for newspapers will therefore be a sociological rather than technological one.
And surely – one can only hope – that is generations away.
- 9 October @ 6:46 pm[...] Will iPod Touch Really Kill Off Newspapers? @ Alltogether Digital The always interesting Jeff Jarvis has suggested in his column in The [...]
- 10 October @ 7:18 amI am a proud ipod touch owner
I agree with everything that your saying, however I don’t think that battery life will get in the way of people switching from newspapers to web.
The ipod touch, i will admit, does seem to have a short battery life, however if you know how to use it, you can make the battery stretch for days.
The reason it seems to drain so quickly, is because users tend to mess with it non stop; basically, you turn the brightness down, select a song, and then tap the sleep/wake button – the screen turns off while the music plays, and it will play all the next songs in the list as welll
If you do that, your battery can last probably 90% longer
I’ll put it like this; once, i was listening to my ipod, around mid day. Then my dad needed help with something
Later that night i found that my ipod had been playing music the whole time because i hadnt stopped it and forgot about it; I turned it on and had 82% battery left. I know it was 82% because i hacked it and now it displays a number instead of a battery icon
(Editor’s note – comment edited for formatting)
- 9 January @ 9:27 pmmatt – you make some good points regarding battery life; however I’m yet to be convinced that books will die, if only for the reason that I need something to read on a plane during the take-off when all electrical devices have to be turned off.
The other point is that if one were to use the Touch for reading a book, the light would have to be on by default.
- 10 January @ 8:58 am