[LINK] How many Newspapers does it take to build Ayers Rock?

[Ivan Trundle]

On 13/05/2009, at 10:24 AM, Glen Turner wrote:

> But when you do, it's still orders of magnitude less carbon to send  
> bits

Only when there is carbon-based machinery at the endpoint to accept  
the bits!

I'm no luddite (or apologist for the newspaper industry) but as a  
community, we make many assumptions about the 'green-ness' of  
activities when we do not always have the complete picture. It's hard  
to disaggregate the overall impact of electronic devices, and whilst  
I'm sure that ISPs and telcos are getting greener, overall demand for  
electronic devices is growing, both in the home and in the office (and  
car, plane, boat, etc).

What is more interesting to me is Rupert Murdoch's plan to try to  
recoup money from readers via the bit-stream, rather than the paper- 
stream. He sees the (ahem) writing on the wall: that the decline in  
traditional paper reading is being overtaken by online reading, and is  
looking for ways to ensure a revenue path that sustains his business.  
And yet in the early days, newspapers were almost free, and supported  
by advertising. This appears to be problematic for publishers of his  
ilk: the rivers of gold are now dispersed: digital readers are exposed  
to less advertising (if they weren't, publishers wouldn't be  
complaining).

iT
--
Ivan Trundle
http://itrundle.com ivan at itrundle.com
ph: +61 (0)418 244 259 fx: +61 (0)2 6286 8742 skype: callto://ivanovitchk