If you type in the key words: "declining newspaper circulation" in either Google or Yahoo search engine these days, you will find that newspaper executives across the world are all analyzing reasons behind the phenomenon. It is a tough time for newspaper business with even the second largest newspaper group in US -- Tribune Co. being forced by investors to sell off papers for some quick cash. Many newspaper organizations turn to online media to generate new advertising revenues. But with a challenge of facing the culture clash between printed media and a crowd of new generation Internet audiences, few online newspapers stands out above other fellow information providers as the go-to source for avid surfers. The composition of online audiences is different from that of traditional breakfast paper readers. Many news staff in newspaper organizations attributed lack of interests in reading to the fact of "information overload". Yet survey conducted by marketing research firms found that internet users are often hunger for more information, and hence the popularity of internet "Blogs" and "Podcasts". It seems online readers are seeking more information to match their insatiable appetite for more opinions and data. While it is natural for a traditional newspaper related online newspaper site to be decorated with web pages featuring big print like ads and popup windows, internet users show little tolerance and understanding to such traditional advertising tactics. The little tolerance is partly attributable to the popularity of craigslist.org, which has almost no graphics on the site. On the other hand, most of the online newspaper stories especially those from common resources such as AP, Reuters, looks pretty much alike -- well, just like a newspaper print encircled by picture ads. Baring in mind the available technologies on the Internet, it does look like newspaper industry is lagging behind in the effort of satisfying information hunger of the internet readers. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and breached the levy, how many online news stories attached latitude and longitude coordinates of the Lake Pontchartrain, even though online surfers could be curious about how it looks on Google Map before the hurricane? For the last two years, when Google Map "meshups" starts taking off in classified departments of some newspapers, how many reporters started regularly reporting GPS locations of places in "Haditha, Bagdad, Iraq, North Korea . . ." or even street address and names in domestic stories? Is it just me, or someone else as well, that are interested in seeing satellite images, even a low resolution ones, of those places? The only prototype that I can see so far on the Internet with such 3D journalism is: http://81nassau.com/apnews/ which use derived latitude and longitude to plot some of the stories on the mother Earth itself. Still, it is a refreshing site with almost no ads and with stories that I can spend a few more minutes to dig deeper and digest. When will news organizations start reporting stories with relevant GPS positions (easily available technology) along with breaking news? When will media organizations start publishing stories with latitude/longitude and projections on Google Map or the alike (another easily available technology)? To an average online user, i.e. me, when everyone is reporting the same story, the publisher with 3D journalism is the one I am going to turn to. How do they make up for the advertising revenue that they used to have? Well, that is their problem. But with me spending 15 minutes on a story rather than 3 minutes that I used to do, they ought to be able to figure out some other ways other than displaying annoying popup ads. A story that is not 3D on the age of "information overload" is simply too thin to attract users. And who is providing 3D news stories? |
