The World's oldest newspaper has gone
digital. And soon old people may
finally go the same way. . .by embracing the digital easy reader.
Post-och Inrikes Tidinga, founded in 1645 by Sweden's Queen Kristina and the
world's oldest newspaper in circulation, has dropped its paper edition and
exists only on the internet.
"It's a cultural disaster," says
former chief editor Hans Holm, according to a news agency report published in the Cape Times on 7 February
2007.
Certainly a ‘cultural disaster’ for
old editors like Holm and me – and hundreds of newspaper editors I have met
around the world. Ink is in our blood.
We cannot believe that educated readers would want to read books, and
front-page news and editorials online, or on a shiny plastic screen.
But it is happening. And, perhaps as a minority of one
among old editors, I believe newspapers may soon vanish from our
world.
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One day you may have no option
but to buy an 'electronic book-holder' and use it to read all your favourite novels, non-fiction and training manuals. It’ll be cheaper, and easier to
read that way.
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Your 'Easy Reader' will turn pages at a touch, and be light to hold -
even when reading 20 seriously heavy books and carrying around a couple
of dozen light novels in that tiny tablet.
Savo Tufegdzic tested a new product in South Africa recently, and his reaction was 'Wow!' He reported that he felt the digital reading revolution for readers had finally begun.
He is an
‘expert’ in that he was already using a device to read e-books.
But he was
still adding paper books to his own over-crowded shelves because he found the
screen size of the old one too small and the scroll-down device too clumsy. Also, the screen
brightness hurt his eyes after a while.
So
he went searching the net for a better digital book-reader. . . and found
overseas a Sony product. . . something rather like the one Bill Gates had been
talking about a decade ago.
“After
spending two months playing with the PRS 500, I am convinced that the future of
reading novels will definitely change from paper to paper-like-quality computer
screens,” he reported.“All
the website hype about the product was true. It did look like paper, you could
see the screen in full sunlight, it didn't hurt your eyes, it was not
heavy (even though you can store up to
80 books on it before a memory card is needed).
“I
have already read 20 novels, including Johnathan Kellerman's Obsession, Barry
Eisler's John Rain series, Vince Flyn's Mitch Rapp collections
and Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels. Prices have varied from $5 to $15
per e-book downloaded.
“The
device has travelled with me to Zambia and Mozambique. It sits in my briefcase
when I go to the office. I have sat on planes and in airport lounges reading
books off it. You can read many different novels simultaneously if you want,
without having to cart extra luggage
with you. It has changed the way I read. Recently, I tried reading
a novel that had been sitting next to my bed for quite some time. I realised
that I couldn't automatically (that is, with the press of a button) turn the page, the book felt heavy, I couldn't zoom
up the text, so I put the book down and pulled out the e-reader and continued
with James Patterson's The Fifth Horseman in my newly acquired, but
much preferred, format.. . ”
So
there you have it. Lots of us oldies
will still prefer a leather-bound, gilt-edged volume; or a paperback with a
lurid, bloodied blonde on the cover; or a dog-eared favourite with pencil marks
or happy birthday wishes in it.
And publishers
and retailers are going to fight this digital nonsense till nearly the bitter
end – when they will find out it is not nonsense, and they can sell digital
versions very easily. Some publishers, including traditionalists such as Penguin
and Random House are themselves publishing e-books. Perhaps retailers will
take the tide and start promoting and selling e-books so that readers can come into the shop and instantly download what
they want – with no waiting and at half the price (and with greater profit for the bookshop). It is the printers and pulp companies that
need to worry. . . and they are already planning their futures.
The book-reading future is not
going to happen to you and me and our favourite bookshops next year, or even the
year after possibly. But the revolution has started, and as you won’t beat it – you'll need to
join it when its viable, and enjoy its undoubted benefits.
Certainly I’ll buy a digital easy reader…
if it is guaranteed not to behave like my home computer does. |
