Bachelor Thesis: Tomorrow’s Newspaper *Update* 0
“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. It’s very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate in that it’s introduced a few of these. “ Steve Jobs
When Cai Lun first invented the papermaking process in 105 AD, he didn’t expect that ink printed on paper would rapidly become the medium for delivering written information over the next 2000 years. No doubt about the fact that people at this time preferred stone tablets or parchment to write on…
Fast forward to 2010 when Steve Jobs announced the iPad, the consumer reacted the same way. What is this device for and why should we use it? Why won’t we just use the existing computers to read the newspaper? Well, as the world becomes increasingly mobile the form factor of the iPad makes the experience vastly superior to reading news on a traditional computer. It’s almost like paper, or as Steve Jobs would say: It’s more intimate than a PC. The iPad travels with the reader and behaves like the paper version except that it visualizes the content in a totally new digital way: Videos, animations and interactivity enriches the consumption of today’s newspaper. In contrast to the PC the iPad is called a “lean back medium”, derived from the posture when using the device. Mathias Döpfner, Chairman and CEO of the German Media giant Axel Springer, adds to this:
“Every publisher in the world should sit down once a day and pray to thank Steve Jobs that he is saving the publishing industry.“ Mathias Döpfner
Local newspapers are slowly losing readers. Yet almost all newspapers have survived. Is the printed newspaper about to die? I’d answer it this way: No, but it’s sick and it’s not getting better. It is somewhat inevitable that the tablet will start to cannibalize the printed newspaper. Mathias Döpfner emphasizes that if today’s newspapers don’t transform their content to digital, they’ll have no future.
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