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Monday, February 2, 2009

Books Food for Thought

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 3:14 PM

17d4/1233609515-good-news.jpg

...we thought it was worth pointing out that it costs the [New York] Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead.

I'm against the Kindle because it's not DRM-free, but this should be kind of an eye-opener for newspaper subscribers. I'm surprised nobody's tried some version of e-newspaper delivery yet.

(Via.)

Comments (18) RSS

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What does DRM mean?

Posted by this guy I know in Spokane on February 2, 2009 at 3:25 PM

Kindle's DRM content is only attached to stuff sold via Amazon. However you can download anything from Project Gutenberg, etc, which is neat (and DRM free) and also load it with text files of your own creation.

Posted by k on February 2, 2009 at 3:26 PM

"I'm surprised nobody's tried some version of e-newspaper delivery yet."

What would you call an e-newsletter delivered with content on a regular basis? We've had these for years, I get these from KUOW and a few other news sources. Millions of people have tried exactly this, none have gone so mainstream more than a few thousand people subscribe.

Posted by Chris on February 2, 2009 at 3:36 PM

uh, I think the Kindle does get magazines and newspapers...or, at least, they were working on that capability a couple years ago....

or so I heard.

ahem.

Posted by michael strangeways on February 2, 2009 at 3:52 PM

Good for you, Paul. DRM should be opposed at every turn and killed dead doornail dead, with a stake through its heart. DRM is never to be tolerated.

Posted by ivan on February 2, 2009 at 3:55 PM

the kindle does get magazine and newspaper subscriptions. one for the times runs ~$13/month.

see also, http://www.slate.com/id/2208445/

Posted by josh on February 2, 2009 at 3:55 PM

If reading the kindle were a similar experience as reading the paper, this may be reasonable. Not sure many readers would switch to electronic delivery since the people who are willing to do that are already reading on the web.

Posted by john on February 2, 2009 at 3:57 PM

Kindle can read DRM-free PDFs.

Posted by Eric J on February 2, 2009 at 4:18 PM

"I'm surprised nobody's tried some version of e-newspaper delivery yet."

I believe this is called RSS. . .

All the news that's fit to print (and the SLOG) right to my email inbox.

Posted by rss on February 2, 2009 at 4:28 PM

Electronic delivery of newspapers has been around for over 20 years.

Posted by Mike on February 2, 2009 at 4:38 PM

The trouble comes when you go to throw the reader up on the porch. It usually breaks.

Posted by paper boy on February 2, 2009 at 4:43 PM

They would cut costs but they'd loose all of their advertising revenue. Just think of how much the New York Times would save if it didn't exist!

Posted by Leslie Lurch on February 2, 2009 at 5:06 PM

Um, isn't www.seatimes.com and whatever site the Pee-Eye uses technically "e-delivery"?

I mean sure, you have to actually go click some link or open up your favorites, but after you do that, Blammo! The content of the newspaper is right there...

...crap full of annoying flashing animated gif ads, lots of useless content ("More cute cat pix from our readers!"), and not easily browsable at the same speed as the paper edition. But still...

Posted by and you kids STAY off my lawn! on February 2, 2009 at 5:13 PM

Yeah, DRM is bad. The last thing we'd want is for writers to make any money from their work.

Posted by seandr on February 2, 2009 at 5:31 PM

"I'm surprised nobody's tried some version of e-newspaper delivery yet."

This has been done in about 15 different ways, from the Kindle to the iPhone to the New York Times Reader project.

Every time you comment on anything outside of books (on paper) you display just how out of touch you are with the rest of society. Stick to what you know.

Posted by rjh on February 2, 2009 at 9:33 PM

"I'm surprised nobody's tried some version of e-newspaper delivery yet."

Gosh, Paul, it must be that we're just so thick and trogloditic that we can't even pay anyone to give us a clue. Might as well just give up on us. We haven't adapted, so we might as well just die.

Gimme a break.

Posted by Read it in the Times on February 2, 2009 at 9:51 PM

I love this idea. BUT NOT WITH KINDLE! They need to partner with Plastic Logic: http://www.plasticlogic.com/ and get a much better custom screen produced. An order of 1 million units would drive the cost far below the quoted $359 each. And imagine what you could charge an advertiser to get a clickable, expandable ad in front of all those tech-saavy, forward-thinking (i.e wealthy) people! Then, they could team up with a magazine publisher - say Conde Nast, and throw Wired, Vanity Fair, and a few magazines on there. And finally, they could start charging other publications who wanted to offer their content on the proprietary readers. Starnger- are you taking notes?? Move over iPhone!

Posted by Scooter Alexander on February 3, 2009 at 5:42 AM