Zizz Fusion

The recent news story of the news itself was that one of Britain’s biggest newspapers would start charging users to read content it puts on the internet. The Times and The Sunday Times will be following Richard Murdoch’s decision to introduce charging for online access of The Sun and The News of the World.

The truth of the matter is that newspapers are loosing money through decreased sales of the stuff off trees. Whilst some of this is due to its free availability on the internet having more appeal; there are many other reasons. Younger generations are generally accustomed to a different way of consuming information. Newspapers do not fit the bill by their very nature of often being text heavy and hard to absorb in a single glance. Those accustomed to the 140 character limits of Twitter feeds and alike have perhaps a lesser attention span and/ or lesser time to consume such large amounts of text found in traditional news media.

There is perhaps another reason why readership of newspapers is lower not just on paper but online, through television and virtually any other medium. It is that some have a complete ignorance of current affairs beyond their own doorstep and fail to follow it through any form for days, weeks or even months on end. Tapping into this audience is something which newspapers have a great challenge ahead to achieve. It’s not necessarily, as perceived, an audience consisting of only younger generations.  This audience includes many from young to old who may or may not consciously choose to consume news stories on a regular basis.

A rather unusual prediction of mine is that some of the existing audience who currently consume The Times Online for free may actually turn back to the paper form. Cost-wise this could be cheaper for those prefering to read a weekly supply of news such as The Saturday/The Sunday Times. They don’t need a subscription plus it’s fully portable without the need for power or a costly mobile internet connection.

A look back in time at online newspapers

The Wall Street Journal (1996)

This was one of the earliest examples of online newspapers we could find. Its colour limited & rough grey gradient design surrounds the sparse areas of content. In these early days of the internet it wasn’t clear whether newspapers had a strategy for delivering much of their content online.

Le Monde (1997)

In France Le Monde introduced their online presence in 1996 too. This screenshot from their 1997 website demonstrates how even then the power of online advertising was present in many commercial websites.

Daily Mail (2000)

The Daily Mail’s website in the year 2000 provided little more than a hang out for tech fans. At this time the audience for online content was limited and mainly refined to an audience with specialist knowledge in IT.

The Guardian (2000)

In contrast from The Daily Mail’s website in the year 2000; The Guardian was striding forward in a content rich website. It contained news, sport and a whole lot of other content including career news and creative/cultural activities.

Die Zeit (2001)

Germany’s ‘Die Zeit’ seemed keen in its early days of online presence to maintain a familiar layout style on its website as in its printed newspaper version. Colour is limited and even the background resembles the traditional yellow/cream tinged style of a printed paper. Content is lesser than that found in the printed version.

Российская газета (2003)

In this Russian newspaper there is again limited use of colour. What is more apparent is the greater population of content into the page. Here the ‘old school’ three column design is used to separate and box off different sections of content and website functionality.

The Independent (2004)

Some earlier adopters to the payment system for online reading of newpapers were The Independent. Their system used BT’s ClickandBuy e-payments system. This works in a similar way to Paypal but is geared at only small payments.

The Mirror

Contrast the first shot from 2005 with that of 2010 in the second shot. The Mirror in earlier years kept its web presence relatively plain in format and with limited use of colours and visual appeal. The website of 2010 reflects more the newspaper’s bold, loud layout with large text and photos. Content is structured in a blog style format with the opportunity for its audience to comment on the news stories and post a link to on social networking platforms.

(2005)

(2010)

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