For Newspapers Publishers, the Kindle-iPhone Race Is Already Over
by Peter Kafka
Posted on June 9, 2009 at 8:06 AM PT
We all know tomorrow’s newspapers won’t be printed on paper, but delivered via the Internet. The question for today’s publishers is whether consumers are going read them on smart phones like Apple’s iPhone or the Kindle from Amazon (AMZN).
But that shouldn’t be a question at all, argues Martin Langveld at Nieman Lab: Smart phones are winning this one running away.
And, I agree.
Langveld’s piece is worth reading, but I can sum it up here: If you’re a hardcore book or magazine person, perhaps you’ll carry a Kindle or similar device around. But everyone has a phone on them already, and they’re already using them to read stuff online. The New York Times (NYT) says it’s generating 60 million mobile page views a month, up 100 percent in the last year.
And while Langveld’s post doesn’t get into this, I’ve yet to figure out the appeal of reading newspapers on a Kindle, or any of the other e-readers I’ve fondled to date. Yes, the screen is bigger, but it to me the experience is an unhappy compromise between print and the Web.
(I do understand why publishers are so eager to get consumers to read their papers on e-readers–they think that if they can reproduce a newspaper-like experience, they can reproduce newspaper economics, where they get money for both subscriptions and advertising. But future technology won’t revive extinct business models.)
Kindle-like readers will get better over over time. Screens will get lighter and more flexible, and add color and video capabilities, and navigation will get less clumsy.
But that could be many years from now–while more and more people become used to reading anything and everything from their handsets–$99 iPhone from Apple (AAPL), anyone? If you’re still in the newspaper business, and think you will be in a year or two, you’d better figure out to get your stuff on my phone, right now.
[Image credit: Paolo Camera]
Comments
If they’d give me a Kindle for free with a $15 a month subscription to the New York Times and/or Washington Post (sorry, I don’t read the WSJ, I don’t appreciate their far-right point of view) then I’d use one. But I’m not paying for it, since the wireless part is paid for by the downloads, not the price of the device.
My iPhone will do, and the coming iPad by Apple will be so much better the race for even those kinds of readers will be over in an instant once it’s released.
Posted by Eric Welch at June 9th, 2009 at 8:26 amFew problems here:
The $99 iPhone is heavily subsidized, there could (and quite possibly will) be subsidized e-readers at some point.
The most expensive part of the Kindle (as I understand it) is the “e-paper” screen. Seems like this could “easily” be replaced with a color screen for those who want such a thing, along with decreased battery life probably. But some of us actually LIKE the reflective screen, and the two heavy book readers I showed mine to recently both ooohed and aaahed as soon as they saw it, before I had even done anything beside bring some text up on it.
My life doesn’t revolve around phone calls (and I’ve gone to some lengths to keep it that way). I was just remarking recently that I’d rather have a phone capability, even a primitive one, added to the Kindle, than Kindle capabilities added to a phone.
What are we dealing with here: Small power sipping general purpose CPU, gigs of memory, external interface, battery and display, various kinds of radios for GPS, Cell, WiFi and other data, and other gimmicky add-ons like motion detectors, cameras, thermometers, pulse and blood pressure monitors, whatever floats your boat. But all that might just as well describe a Netbook, an e-reader or a cell phone. There is no particular advantage (except to the likes of AT&T or Verizon) to pigeon hole such a device as a cell-phone or a not-cell-phone. As is the case now with the free-fall in GPS hardware, the ability to make phone calls (which boils down to a chip or two plus anything with a microphone and speakers) needs to be seen as a “peripheral” to whatever form-factor your small computing device(s) takes.
It’s time for the hegemony of “plan” linked phones to come to an end.
Posted by Mac Beach at June 9th, 2009 at 11:27 amMac, I think you will get some color screens on fairly cheap devices in the future. So you may get what you’re looking for. But I don’t think there will be many of you — people who avoid phones but do want to carry around a mobile reading device.
Posted by Peter Kafka at June 9th, 2009 at 11:39 amCount me as the second person who avoids a (cell) phone but happily totes around a Kindle (DX starting later this week); we are definitely in the extreme minority though.
Posted by Jonathan Marcus at June 9th, 2009 at 11:53 amI can’t imagine using a phone to read an actual book. It may be good for Twitter tweets and such, but I imagine people who do a good bit of real reading will prefer a larger screen without the grease marks and glare.
Posted by peter togglund at June 9th, 2009 at 1:51 pmI shared your opinion, Peter (togglund) — until I downloaded my first book to Kindle for iPhone on a lark. A month later I’m on my 5th. I have no complaints about eye strain, screen size or glare. Honestly, I think I’m reading more now than I ever did before simply because I always have the book I’m currently reading in my pocket.
Posted by John Paczkowski at June 9th, 2009 at 3:37 pm