I literally had to read this story twice to make sure I wasn’t being spoofed: PiPress owner MediaNews Group will test a proprietary device that prints a customized newspaper in your home.
The trial, bearing the H.G. Wellsian label “Individuated News” or I-News, will be tested in L.A. this summer. (Yes, PiPress furloughees, this is how Dean Singleton is spending your money.)
The concept, such as it is, would deliver a completely customizable edition to a MediaNews printer in the home. The media giant would save money because it would only mass-print papers on the week’s three highest sales days.
This is the current print schedule in Detroit, sans device, and other cities will inevitably experience such pain down the road. So for many readers, it might be I-News or no newspaper news. (And no, I’ve heard nothing about this happening in St. Paul.)
The I-paper would still carry print ads, which could fetch a premium because they’d be customized to a reader’s interests.
As much as I love print, and customization, there are 100 reasons why this is the stupidest idea since CueCat. Nieman Lab’s Martin Langeveld has an awesome takedown here. Among his points:
- The goal of reducing print frequency won’t be accomplished by shifting printing expense to consumers. The price of reams of paper and printing cartridges will likely outstrip the consumer’s cost of a home delivered paper on newsprint.
- The system adds inconvenience at the consumer end in the form of printer management.
- It can already be done with FeedJournal, free, without a dedicated piece of equipment. Why would readers want to pay for a narrower service that requires another appliance in their house?
- This method eliminates or minimizes serendipity, which is one of the things print still does better than digital delivery; it’s something consumers like, for both news and advertising content.
- Newspaper companies should be getting out of the hardware business, not into it, and especially should avoid investing in proprietary, dedicated devices like this. (Although I’ve said that Hearst is smart to work on an e-reader, which is an entirely different animal.)
Another reason you should click through to Langeveld’s piece: There’s a great photo of a previous version of this technology … from 1939.
