Newspaper has had a long history. Going back to the original origins, newspaper was first seen some five centuries ago in Europe. Things were initially handwritten and passed between people to inform others of important events. The first published newspaper was seen in Germany back in the 1400’s. In American, the first paper was published in Boston in the year of 1690, it was entitled Publick Occurences. Today, just within the US, there are many varieties of newspapers such as national papers, city papers, and even county papers.
Recently, there has been much talk around the possible closing of big name Newspaper companies. For example, recently, the SanFranciso was named as a company that is in danger of closing or being sold, if it does not stop the huge losses. There are many more examples like this company who are either closing their doors or choosing to go mostly on-line. The internet has been the main culprit causing such recent events. Even more, the rise of web 2.0 technology can even be seen as an additional reason. For example, people going to a website such as cnn.com or the washingtonpost.com is one thing. But when you couple this with people now getting RSS feeds, twittering, getting live updates, etc. this compounds the issue. People no longer have to go somewhere to get
the news, the news is essentially delivered to them via their emails, iPhones, PDA, etc. Even more, people can decide what news they want. A traditional news paper, would deliver all news for the day, even when the reader may only really want the sports section. But with web 2.0 technology, a user is able to specify what exactly he/she would like delivered to them. This is an prime example of user customization.
Recently, there has been much talk around the possible closing of big name Newspaper companies. For example, recently, the SanFranciso was named as a company that is in danger of closing or being sold, if it does not stop the huge losses. There are many more examples like this company who are either closing their doors or choosing to go mostly on-line. The internet has been the main culprit causing such recent events. Even more, the rise of web 2.0 technology can even be seen as an additional reason. For example, people going to a website such as cnn.com or the washingtonpost.com is one thing. But when you couple this with people now getting RSS feeds, twittering, getting live updates, etc. this compounds the issue. People no longer have to go somewhere to get
the news, the news is essentially delivered to them via their emails, iPhones, PDA, etc. Even more, people can decide what news they want. A traditional news paper, would deliver all news for the day, even when the reader may only really want the sports section. But with web 2.0 technology, a user is able to specify what exactly he/she would like delivered to them. This is an prime example of user customization. With such possible closings, it makes me ask some questions. One in particular is what type of people are still getting traditional news? Who is still buying these hard copy versions? Why have they not gone online to get their news? What will they do once newspaper production is limited? How else can web 2.0 technology help with the customization and dissemination of the news? Who will be a prime providers of online news? Will there be a prime provider? (I am guessing not.) What happens to people that don’t have access to the internet on a daily basis?
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