Saturday, March 12, 2011

Tablets: A threat to future newspaper sales?

I enjoy the use of a tablet to help me out with reading all sorts of electronic documents. These include a variety of online newspapers. However, there are some concerns about how newspapers might be hurt by a lack of sales due to people going to tablets to read them.

I understand that this is an obviously trade-off between technology and convenience. Still, it is something that could be a legitimate point to see. There is a potential that the print newspaper could become a thing of the past in the near future.

The cost of changing layouts

One interesting cost that many newspapers are dealing with involves rearranging their newspapers to where they can handle tablets. This comes from how companies are spending more money with trying to get different items to be laid out and organized to where they might be easier to handle. The cost of work for people who will handle these items and the cost of servers to help with getting new information for tablets ready will only make things a little more difficult for some newspapers to handle.

Advertising problems

There is also the way how some newspapers are going to have to change their layouts to where different ads are used. Ads are still used in newspapers but they are often for local areas. Therefore, an ad for a local business will be useless to someone who is not from a certain area. This may cause ad revenues to go down and therefore cause a newspaper to lose money.

What about customization?

There is the potential for tablets to allow people to get custom newspapers. I like this idea because it allows me to submit data to a newspaper to allow me to get news stories on specific things that I might be more interested in. However, this does not necessarily mean that a newspaper will enjoy this service because it may end up losing money on the needs to try and adjust their work for my needs and the needs of others. This could even cause some newspapers to charge people money for subscribing to what they have.

I do enjoy these features when getting different things read on my tablet. However, I am aware of the concerns that newspapers are dealing with when getting different items on tablets ready. These expenses are big points that can influence how some newspapers may work over time.



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