Newspapers and the net - was Re: Stupidest Quote etc

[Stewart Fist]

Tony Barry wrote:
 
> Increasingly I find myself reading newspapers I would not normally read as
> people send me URLs of articles. Also I'm starting to browse outside my
> usual line of papers if I want a possibly different slant on a story. But I
> read them online.
> 
> I'm also starting to treat the ABC like a newspaper with a window open to
> <http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/default.htm> which is more complete
> that the radio bulletins. This page is set to refresh via a META tag
> every 30 minutes.
> 
> But what I find most interesting is an email I get each morning from the
> Australian (a paper well know to Stewart :-) which lists the main stories
> with a URL link to their full text which I can click on and view if I am
> interested. I read the news which I drink my coffee. This mornings
> email is appended. This is a free service (at the moment).

But Tony, you don't work in a cement factory.

I have never said that the Internet won't replace newspapers for librarians,
or journalists.  But that's different to the cement factory worker who buys
the Daily Telegraphy to read the comics and sports pages going home in the
train, and watches Pay TV or FTA Sale of the Century.

We've got to stop believing that the average guy in the street will do more
than fiddle with his kid's Internet connection, look up a few porn pages, then
go back to his television.  He won't become a net surfer.

What is just as likely to happen is that the hundreds of channels of digital
TV will tend to provide greater niche marketing opportunities for a very much
wider range of interests, and this will partly fill the gap now being filled
by some of this Internet surfing.

-- 
Stewart Fist - writer and columnist
See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/techno/columns/fist.htm 
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