Washington Post Mobile App Does It Right

Washington Post mobile app does it right

Amazon reminds me, my Washington Post free subscription is going to end. Finally I opened the mobile app.

A lot of the traditional newspapers or magazines get it wrong. They put the PDF version of the newspaper (or magazine) and put it online as an online version. Washington Post is a hybrid version website and traditional version. You have a choice to display the printout layout, but once you click on the news, it will show the online version.

The PDF version is not good for mobile/desktop use, because the viewing devices may have different sizes, but the PDF format is fixed, the paragraph never wraps around according to the device. Washington Post app allows you to choose what type of news to be displayed like headlines, editor pick.

Wow! I think the Washington Post does it right.

Impact of Internet technology to publishing industry

A few weeks ago, I have blogged about the impact of Internet technology to movie industry (refer here, Chinese blog). This time I am going to take it one step further, the Internet impact to music, TV broadcasting, printing and publishing.

Let's start with audio. The iPod and iTunes has changed the music industry. Consumers don't buy music CDs, they purchase music from online store. Consumers buy music online with single songs, not the full album. The podcast is a Internet offline broadcasting through iPod (or mp3 devices), audio streaming services like Pandora take one step further, live audio broadcast through Internet. This is the pass.

This similar things happen to the TV broadcast industry. Video streaming services (eg. Netflix, YouTube) will threaten and changed the existing TV industry. The TV series "House of Cards" was premiered on Netflix, not on the traditional TV broadcast channel.

In traditional publishing industry, many book store has closed down, losing their business to online book store like Amazon. The Washington Post, one of the oldest newspaper, sold to Jeff Bezos (Founder of Amazon.com) in year 2013, after a tremendous in year 2012. Not just for newspaper industry, same thing will happen to magazine and book publishing. The publishing business will never like before.

Product service decide buying decision (newspaper)

A good example to show service decide buying decision.

My friend told me why he changed his subscription from Oriental Daily News newspaper to Sin Chew. It is just a simple reason, Sin Chew deliver the newspaper much earlier to his doorstep.

Oriental Daily's history is not as long as Sin Chew. Oriental Daily publish everyday including holidays. Sin Chew and a few of the others newspaper publisher didn't published for few selected holidays throughout a year. Publish 365 days is a good service too.

Oriental Daily is a smaller (Berliner) size, about a quarter of the size of traditional newspaper. These days, more people prefer Berliner format, because is easier to hold on hands. This is quite similar with one of the reasons why people prefer theStar and The New Straits Times.

Newspaper is a product. Having a good product is not good enough, because most newspaper publisher provide similar news content everyday. The packaging and service make difference.

What's next?

If faster delivery service is a very important factor, traditional printed paper are not going to compete with online news. The Washington Post (Note: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to acquire The Washington Post)is a good example, and just a start.

New media don't lie

Newspaper, TV and radio is not the only media available. More news are available on facebook, twitter and internet.

Everyone should learn about new media and internet, especially the minister.

Few days back, Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai claims that police did not shoot tear gas and water cannon into Tung Shin Hospital on Bersih 2.0 rally day.

More and more evidence on photos, video and witnesses showing that it did happened. (here, here, here and here)

Is time for those minister to spend some time on internet.