Newspapers online - their advertising can be powerful, using multimedia

I was recently engaged in discussion about the weakening of newspapers in an internet world, and there was some talk about income and market effectiveness of online versus paper newspapers. The experience below made me think about the power of online adversising and online news distribution. I opened up the online New York Times this evening and....

Tags: advertising multimedia newspapers
Posted at 09:33PM Sep 10, 2008 by John Travers  | 

Comfortable browsing on the iPhone

Mobile web browsers like the iPhone have great advantages due to portability and being immediately available anytime. But, they are darn small to display web pages. The first image is of the regular New York Times page on the iPhone. It is all there and quite easy to move around, but the page is designed to be viewed on a regular size screen. So one is in effect looking at the page through a window about a quarter the size of the normal computer screen. This works, but is not fitting design to function very well.

The touch screen brings a lot of navigation advantages but it is irritatingly easy to accidentally trigger a link when you are just trying to scroll the screen. So crawling back to where you meant to be is a regular activity.

Then lo! along came the NYT application, which converts the reguar display to the shape of a moble device. The image on the left shows a much simplified display with the story teasers one under the other. This has proved much easier to navigate. It is not as attractive as a whole as the full computer screen display which is a truncated view for the paper newspaper display, but I have found is much better for the reader. I am now reading a lot more of the content than I did on a laptop. The buttons along the bottom of the screen link to 4 main headings and a More display which is the next image on the right. This provides a very simple menu to almost the entire paper. I have been a regualar NYT reader for years and found it very satisfactory to continue reading on the iPhone. The ability to be reading the 'paper' while watching TV is great for me, and the unobtrusive size of the iPhone made is easier and more comfortable.  But I must admit, not as quick as on a laptop.

The buttons along the bottom of the screen link to 4 main headings and a More link to a simple menu of sections of almost the entire paper.

The lesson for me is to further convince me that our future is a mobile one. The convenience and simplicity of accessing the web is very persuasive. Being able to just grab the device like a magazine and browse for what you want is very powerful. It shows how constrained we have been by the bulk of a computer. First desktops in one location, and even laptops with wireless connectivity. I have wireless at home and at work, and so can cope with a modest 3G limit (150Mb per month). I am viewing and reading more and enjoying the experience more.

Tags: iphone mobile learning multimedia
Posted at 08:33PM Sep 04, 2008 by John Travers  |