Bits and Pieces on the Future of News

Bill Keller of the NYTIMES, hen asked if printed papers will disappear, responded, “I think newspapers on paper will be around for a good while yet. They may in time become niche products -- like vinyl LPs -- for a particular loyal audience.
Read around the Web. Changes coming to the news biz because of tech:

Eerily reminiscent of that web classic "EPIC 2014" in which the Times gives up on electronic publishing, and by printing on paper is of interest to "the elite and the aged."

The Times reader is one way the Times is experimenting with content as an information, instead of content as paper, model. "Times Reader lets users download the most recent version of the NYTimes.com paper, downloading the newest stories every 30 minutes. Readers can then view the paper, formatted much like a print newspaper, on any computer or mobile device. Readers can save articles to their hard drives, search, annotate, and highlight easily. Further, unlike PDF readers, Times Reader does not require users to scroll through stories, but rather use arrow keys."

Nielsen net ratings is changing its standard metric from "page views" on a site to a measure of viewer engagement called "total minutes." This will juggle ratings of existing sites and lead to longer articles with less page clicking. Videos will be used to keep folks on a site for more time, so headline browsing will be accompanied by the video short (1-2 min) package.

And from Publisher and Editor: "According to market researchers, the value of e-paper should double from £980 million ($2 billion) in 2012 to £1.98 billion in 2014, indicating a quick rise in the technology’s popularity and use." Now don't be confused about what epaper is. It is not just news delivered electronically. It is a medium you can carry, fold, use over and over, that uses nanotechnology to be a non-throwaway portable content vessel of the future.