Comments on: Major news outlets to sell multipart investigations as “digital newsbooks”

By: News innovators aren’t innovative enough | Nozzl Media, Inc.

News innovators aren’t innovative enough | Nozzl Media, Inc. — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:15:49 +0000

[...] to order the paper on specific days, rather than forcing them into an all-or-nothing choice. Several projects are under way to reproduce long-form investigative or explanatory series as digital [...]

By: Sharon Stevenson

Sharon Stevenson — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:09:39 +0000

Great idea! I’d only add a firm suggestion on the monetization front. I use Skype all the time. What I most like about it is being able to load up $10 from my credit card and then little by little, I use it for calls. Now granted the bits are pretty little. But the extraordinary hassle of having to try to pay with a credit card for every little bit of news, even sites that I might want makes me grimace.
A broad consortium of newspapers should get together and either find a company or establish one that would be a central journalism clearing house for payments like Skype. This cannot be of brain surgery complexity, and I do realize that the principal barrier would be trust. But if we throw in our dollars, there’s no problem, no bad press, etc., then I see monetization as workable.
And in keeping with that, the specialization that has to be happening for viewers of any medium, will just be a fact of life. I’ll pay for someone to serve my specialization interest and I’ll bet there’ll be a lot of others who will as well. Any comments?

By: MichaelJ

MichaelJ — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:30:17 +0000

Maureen,
Good point. My 2 cents is that ebooks are great to serve a niche market of readers. That explains the success of the Kindle. But most people don’t have the time or willingness to read. For them, a newsbook-on-paper, is a much easier scan. For a high school kid and teacher it could be invaluable.

The good news about printing these days is that we don’t have to make an either/or choice. The prep involved in doing an ebook can be repurposed to output in print. With POD technology there is no need to invest in 10,000 copies. They can be printed 200 at a time and follow the market, instead of trying to predict it.

By: ‘“Dumb Money’s” smart gamble on the allure of e-books’—plus a modest proposal for VIP books | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:00:01 +0000

[...] Just the other day, we heard that major newspapers would try out digital books. [...]

By: News books « HyperCurio.us (beta)

News books « HyperCurio.us (beta) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:57:51 +0000

[...] this kind of work just might offer newspapers an important new revenue stream for the future: Later this month, a coalition of news organizations — including the [Washington] Post, Los [...]

By: 100 Ways To Make Money On The Internet

100 Ways To Make Money On The Internet — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:36:11 +0000

Some Different Ways To Make Money Online…

At more than 24,000 words, Steve Fainaru’s Pulitzer-winning reports on American mercenaries in Iraq were nearly as long as Heart of Darkness and just as eerie. But spread over nine installments in nine months, the Washington Post series could hardly …

By: Maurreen Skowran

Maurreen Skowran — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:13:45 +0000

Newsbooks have potential in multiple formats. This is a good idea, but the execution seems backwards to me.

Better to either print the collection on paper or make the digital version make more use of the medium, such as by adding interactivity.

By: Nikon Digital SLR Sample | The Digital SLR Camera by Nikon

Nikon Digital SLR Sample | The Digital SLR Camera by Nikon — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:38:11 +0000

[...] Major news outlets to sell multipart investigations as “digital … [...]

By: MichaelJ

MichaelJ — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:56:13 +0000

Given how easy it is to turn this into a printed book using POD technology and logistics and given how few things there are worth reading in high school ed, does anyone else think this could find a market in inner city bottom of the pyramid high schools?

By: Digital newsbooks for the stories you missed « Virtualjournalist

Digital newsbooks for the stories you missed « Virtualjournalist — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:49:39 +0000

[...] 9, 2009 Here’s a product that’s long overdue. Major newspapers will start selling multipart investigative series repackaged as digital books: Later this month, a coalition of news organizations — including the Post, New York Times, Wall [...]

By: Reportagens vendidas em livros digitais : Ponto Media

Reportagens vendidas em livros digitais : Ponto Media — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:49:31 +0000

[...] ALGUNS dos principais jornais americanos estão a vender séries das suas melhores reportagens como livros digitais. [...]