Comments on: The ‘daily snailpaper’: Indispensible or unsustainable? http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/the-daily-snailpaper-indispensible-or-unsustainable/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:09:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Danny Bloom http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/the-daily-snailpaper-indispensible-or-unsustainable/comment-page-1/#comment-1159367 Danny Bloom Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:46:05 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2010/03/06/the-daily-snailpaper-indispensible-or-unsustainable/#comment-1159367 Chris, one final note on this: your headline is great and it poses a very good question: Is the daily print newspaper -- like the NY Times or the Anchorage Daily News or the Sacramento Bee or Le Monde or The Japan Times in Tokyo -- indispensible.... or it is unsustainable? My take on all this is that the print paper is not indispensable, we can live and get by without them, and online platforms can do the job well too. Time marches on. But we still use radio, even though TV replaced it, and we still use candles, for birthday cakes and emergencies when the lights go out, even though we have powerful electrical grids. So the book will survive, and so will the print newspaper, but maybe in different limited circulation forms, part of a digital empire but print will still have its place on paper? Indispensable? No. Sustainable? Yes, but with a new financial model and with backing from readers and publishers and maybe the digital site supports the print paper via advertising, one hand feeds the other. Is that possible? Chris, one final note on this: your headline is great and it poses a very good question: Is the daily print newspaper — like the NY Times or the Anchorage Daily News or the Sacramento Bee or Le Monde or The Japan Times in Tokyo — indispensible…. or it is unsustainable?

My take on all this is that the print paper is not indispensable, we can live and get by without them, and online platforms can do the job well too. Time marches on. But we still use radio, even though TV replaced it, and we still use candles, for birthday cakes and emergencies when the lights go out, even though we have powerful electrical grids. So the book will survive, and so will the print newspaper, but maybe in different limited circulation forms, part of a digital empire but print will still have its place on paper? Indispensable? No. Sustainable? Yes, but with a new financial model and with backing from readers and publishers and maybe the digital site supports the print paper via advertising, one hand feeds the other. Is that possible?

]]> By: Danny Bloom http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/the-daily-snailpaper-indispensible-or-unsustainable/comment-page-1/#comment-1159359 Danny Bloom Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:39:00 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2010/03/06/the-daily-snailpaper-indispensible-or-unsustainable/#comment-1159359 btw, funny you should mention Eric Schonfeld at TechCrunch. When I sent him a copy of the song and the lyrics he wrote back and said things I cannot repeat on a family website like this one. It was one long expletive deleted. Maybe he was having a bad hair day? I think Eric is the kind of technofascist we must be wary of, for his kind lurk everywhere and they are not nice people. O the inhumanity! btw, funny you should mention Eric Schonfeld at TechCrunch. When I sent him a copy of the song and the lyrics he wrote back and said things I cannot repeat on a family website like this one. It was one long expletive deleted. Maybe he was having a bad hair day? I think Eric is the kind of technofascist we must be wary of, for his kind lurk everywhere and they are not nice people. O the inhumanity!

]]> By: Danny Bloom http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/the-daily-snailpaper-indispensible-or-unsustainable/comment-page-1/#comment-1159356 Danny Bloom Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:36:26 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2010/03/06/the-daily-snailpaper-indispensible-or-unsustainable/#comment-1159356 Well said, Chris, and well-reasoned. I am getting used to the handwriting on the wall, er, make taht keyed-in text on the paywall. Sooner or later, there won't be any more print newspapers, you might very well might right. And that's okay. Life marches on. But maybe there will be Sunday papers, once a week, kind of like newspaper magazines printed on newsprint, once a week, not for nostalgia's sake, but as part of the culture. But yes, digital's taking over. We all need to get used to it. Me, too. Smile. That's what my song is really all about. Helping print people get ready for the End of the Print Newspaper as You Used to Know It, Dave Eggers not included. Or maybe Dave Eggers included. One observer calls my little ditty of an ode of a song "the world's first musical obit for newspapers." And she's a former longtime newspaper reporter herself, now a retired ex-staffer from a 1981-defunct print paper in DC...... Well said, Chris, and well-reasoned. I am getting used to the handwriting on the wall, er, make taht keyed-in text on the paywall. Sooner or later, there won’t be any more print newspapers, you might very well might right. And that’s okay. Life marches on. But maybe there will be Sunday papers, once a week, kind of like newspaper magazines printed on newsprint, once a week, not for nostalgia’s sake, but as part of the culture. But yes, digital’s taking over. We all need to get used to it. Me, too. Smile. That’s what my song is really all about. Helping print people get ready for the End of the Print Newspaper as You Used to Know It, Dave Eggers not included. Or maybe Dave Eggers included. One observer calls my little ditty of an ode of a song “the world’s first musical obit for newspapers.” And she’s a former longtime newspaper reporter herself, now a retired ex-staffer from a 1981-defunct print paper in DC……

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