iPad the Future of Print? The plague of TMI.

Getting old bites because you realize what you want isn’t really what you need.I have been reading all the headlines that suggest Apple’s new iPad might be the savior of print media. And here is where my wants collide.

I want newspapers (in whatever form possible) to survive. True journalism is too important to society to fall victim to economic downturns. And yet, almost every week brings greater doubt that the course newspapers have charted through precarious financial straits will lead to anything other than more newsprint wreckage on the shoals of digital change. It feels like the next chapter for newspapers will be chapter 11.

And I want Apple’s new iPad (http://www.apple.com/). It’s an ultra-thin (less than half an inch thick) incredibly light (around 1.5 pounds) high resolution (9.7-inch LED backlit 1024x768) powerful (16 Gbytes of flash memory with a 1 GHz CPU) computer-esque device. With multi-touch, GPS, and an accelerometer it is a lot more like an iPhone than even the tablets we have seen in the past. Plus, it has a fairly reasonable entry price point of $499. So, heck yeah, I want it!

But are my wants compatible? Will the device I crave save the news source I desire? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. And the real problem is TMI.

My youngest son taught me that acronym when I tried to explain the birds and bees when he was eight years old. Moving beyond the ambiguous analogies of animals and insects to the more graphic components of reproduction (including a drawing that was marginally anatomically correct) sent him running from the room crying “TMI. TMI!” My oldest son (who had survived the “talk” a few years before) translated – Too Much Information.

In the case of the iPad, it is really TMFI – Too Much Free Information. The problem with newspapers today isn’t so much the medium we read it on, it is the economic expectations we have formed around each medium. Bottom line, we expect an online newspaper to be free. With precious few exceptions, all we need to receive gratis high quality information that is incredibly expensive to produce is a browser and a URL. We don’t need to pay at all. And it was telling that in his slick introduction of the device last week, Steve Jobs deliberately took us to the “New York Times” on his iPad – and he never entered his credit card info. The underlying message was “Buy the $499 device and get the news for free!”

So I want it, but the iPad really won’t save newspapers. It is just a new type of computer that we will use to navigate to free online newspapers. And that won’t help newspapers.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Kindle is what the newspaper industry needs. With limited technical capabilities, the Amazon Kindle isn’t nearly as sexy as the iPad. The Kindle doesn’t have color, video, or web browsing capability. I don’t want the Kindle as much as I want the iPad. But it has one feature the iPad lacks, a toll booth for news content. On my Kindle DX, there is only one way for me to see the “New York Times” -- I have to buy it. With the Kindle and all of the other e-readers, there is an understood expectation that to get content (whether books, magazines, or newspapers) you have to pay. Sure, Amazon takes a big cut of the $0.75 I fork over for my single edition, but at least some of the money is going back to the organization producing the news. Long term, that subscription revenue stream is essential to the long-term survival of newspapers. [Read item below for more info on e-reader research at Grady.]

So yes, I want my iPad – and I am going to get one. But my selfish behavior might come back to haunt me. Without big changes in how (or even whether) we pay for news, there will be less “good” news to read on the iPad.

This DBB (Tu, 2/2, 2P) – Digital Media at Turner

Turner is our digital media home town hero. It is a media monster that is harnessing brand new ways to bring you new types of content on whatever device you want to see it on. At our next Digital Brown Bag (Tuesday, 2/2, 2P, Room 116 Visual Arts) Phil Sharpe (Senior VP for Digital Media Competitiveness & Strategy) and Michael Adamson (VP for Sports New Products and Services) will be our guests. They have wild new ideas about how media is going to change in the next few years.Come hear what they have to say.

Kindle needs to change to reach young readers – Grady Research.

Researchers in the Grady College have been looking at whether e-readers like the Kindle could help newspapers attract young readers. Bottom line, e-readers feel like old media young people. They want color and video – sounds like the iPad, eh? You can read more at http://bit.ly/dmMEOU.

Personal Media / Public Good – 5/1/10 – Save the Date!

This semester in the New Media Institute, we are investigating how personal media (mobile phones, social media, and games) can contribute to public good. Specifically, our projects are going to look at how these personal media platforms can be used to encourage health behaviors. On Saturday, 5/1/10, the Health and Medical Journalism Program (http://www.grady.uga.edu/KnightHealth/), the Center for Health and Risk Communication (http://southerncenter.uga.edu/uga/ugacenter.htm), and the New Media Institute are teaming up to host a conference exploring the ways that new digital media tools can help make communities stronger. It will be a day of panels, discussion and planning. Plus we will be debuting all the NMI projects. So mark your calendar. I will be sending you more information as we finalize plans.