Sunday 10 May 2009

e-readers and advertising on newspapers


Yesterday I wrote a quick note on Kindle DX, the new e-reader from Amazon, and today on The Independent I've found an article titled "Hold the front page: newspapers have a future" (see picture, taken this afternoon from Tate Modern).


Statistics say clearly that advertising in newspapers is going down rapidly (starting well before the 2008 internation crisis), so in this area, like on the web, there's more and more focus on context advertising. Less costs, higher conversion rates.

e-readers can be, more than just an interesting gadget, a tool to access "custom" advertising and ad-hoc contents. It would be nice to read your favorite magazine, select some additional content, find deals on what you're interested in and... buy it straigth away!

But I was also thinking: is an e-reader really needed? Or maybe manufacturer of mobile devices, already accessing Internet via WiFi and 3G, should just provide a big, plug&play screen, optimized for reading? Rather than spending 350P for the Kindle DX, I'd spend half of it for a portable screen to attach to an iPhone...

2 comments:

  1. an e-reader IS a big screen optimised for reading... I don't think the HW/SW component that is independent from the screen is of any interest, technically. But the screen does have to possess some very peculiar attributes: flexible, light, extremely clear, no back-light, very hi-res, long, long battery-life...

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  2. Ah-ah! This is what I meant:
    http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1786

    I'll dig a little bit to check what's happened to that idea...

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