A TSF reader sent us a YouTube interview with Igor Smirnoff, taped at the 2008 Monaco Media Forum on the future of e-papers.
"Who needs paper?" asks the TSF reader.
In the five-minute clip, Smirnoff promotes Newspaper Direct's Pressdisplay.com, an international source for newspapers, and he demonstrates several portable gadgets designed for user-paid newspaper reading.
One phone/monitor gadget didn't work. The battery had just died.
Update: We bought a print edition of the Toronto Sun today. Batteries not included - or needed.
"Who needs paper?" asks the TSF reader.
In the five-minute clip, Smirnoff promotes Newspaper Direct's Pressdisplay.com, an international source for newspapers, and he demonstrates several portable gadgets designed for user-paid newspaper reading.
One phone/monitor gadget didn't work. The battery had just died.
Update: We bought a print edition of the Toronto Sun today. Batteries not included - or needed.
A colleague has forwarded your post to me - and I thank you for re-posting the video.
ReplyDeleteWhile there are occasional glitches in the new platforms, the direction itself of putting the traditional newspaper and magazine content onto emerging devices is the right one - if one truly wants to find ways for the printed media to be successful in migrating their business into online and reach out to new audiences (those who will never pick up a printed copy).
Remember that all of this development comes at no cost to the publishing partners of NewspaperDirect - and it allows them to save the money (they don't have) on things they want to do. See what Toronto Star (and all other 1.000+ titles on PressDislay) look like on the new iPhone application (release due in the upcoming days) http://tinyurl.com/PRiPhone
and the latest iRex Digital Reader
http://tinyurl.com/PRiRex (already on the market).
Please keep in mind that PressDisplay is a demo platform of what is done for many individual publishers. Most of the publications on PressDisplay (inlcuding absolute majority of the Canadian papers) take advantage of the customized version of PressDisplay technology and have their own stand-alone e-paper products. Naturally, all gadgets are supported on all such products, making papers completely platform-agnostic, empowering subscribers of properties such as the Vancouver Sun or the Montreal Gazette to read their papers on whatever device they choose - and that's good news to any newspaper or magazine today.