E-Media Tidbits

Mercury News The San Jose Mercury News' new "E-Edition" tries to make online media more like print. Why bother?

This service isn't free, but at this time I don't know exactly how much a subscription to this service costs. The link for pricing in the promotional e-mail I received is broken. I've called Media News Group Interactive (MNG owns the Mercury News, and MNGI is most likely running the E-Edition project) for info on pricing, and will update with that info when I get a response.

I have to ask: Why would anyone want this? Let alone pay any amount of money whatsoever for it? I've seen several similar efforts, and they all seem to fundamentally miss the point of online media.

I understand why this fully automated approach might appeal to MNG: it's straight shovelware from the paper's pagination system. That's certainly easier for the publisher, and it's also undoubtedly much cheaper than paying news staff. It may even bring in some revenue -- perhaps, if they're lucky, nearly enough to break even on the cost of implementing this system.

But this certainly won't make the Mercury News' content more compelling. Plus this method of delivery presents significant obstacles to most would-be readers. Therefore, I strongly doubt this project will help this struggling news organization's bottom line.

In contrast, fellow Tidbits contributor Ken Sands thinks there may be a slim, short-term business rationale: "Here's the probable reason, mentioned deep in this Seattle Times article: 'Circulation [for Seattle daily papers] also was boosted by new electronic editions -- digital facsimiles of the print newspaper -- that the Times and P-I began marketing over the past year.'"

Sands continued: "When you have a print newspaper with an increase in circulation, everyone's going to emulate whatever they're doing. It's probably just a small, short-term fix, no more than 1-1.5 percent of the print circulation, but it may be better than not doing it, regardless of how retro and goofy it looks."

Another glaring problem with this approach is that it's a usability nightmare. A computer screen is simply not a good way to reproduce the print experience -- it takes too much maneuvering, and the interface is almost never intuitive. Need proof? The E-Edition demo includes about 1400 words of instructions on how to read the E-edition. That's not user-friendly.

Aside from usability, there's a basic marketing problem: People who prefer a print experience, or who don't use the Internet, will get the print paper. People who already go online for news do so because of ease of access, searchability, and other benefits. Neither group is likely to want to wrestle with learning a relatively complex user interface just to get the same content that's already available in print. They're even less likely to pay for the privilege.

And although this is painfully obvious... Why is the major daily paper for Silicon Valley, of all places, putting any effort at all into making its online presence more like print?

Finally, here's the rub: Why would the Mercury News (which in March further reduced its already shrunken staff through 107 buyouts) waste precious resources to move backwards in online media? Molly Ivins said it best in 2006: "I don't so much mind that newspapers are dying -- it's watching them commit suicide that pisses me off."