Can't Stop Progress - Print vs. Online

Last night I was watching Modern Marvels on TV. It was a show that they called "Retrotech" though I think that might have been somewhat of a misleading title. They were showing the old technology, what it has been replaced by and what that means to today's world. At least the world of 2009 in which it was originally aired.

One segment stood out as particularly meaningful to the world of June 2012, and to me personally as a retired page layout designer who worked with print magazines for the last 20 years of my working life.

The segment showed how print newspapers where having to adapt to the changing habits of an increasingly online world. It showed that with so many other options available to get your news today that traditional newspaper publishers are having to find ways to keep people turning to them among so many new choices. They featured one newspaper who was starting to integrate an online version with the traditional printed version. They utilized the same reporters and editors, though they needed to learn new skills and often new ways of reporting. Reporters were becoming bloggers and editors were becoming producers. Management seemed to be very upbeat about the changes, but remember that this was 2009. The world has gone even more to an online paradigm since then. At that time, management reported that 30% of their readers did not have access to the internet, and there was no chance of the print version being totally replaced.

However, the technology revolution continues to speed up, and today not only can you get your news on your computer or smartphone, but tablets have entered the mix, and have become a major factor in the last few years. Many of the major newspapers which used to allow you to access their material for free online, now are using schemes whereby you must pay for it. Some, like the NY Times, allow a certain amount of free content before you need to pay, but more and more you are now finding that - like a newspaper on the newstand - if you want to read your favorite newspaper online, you will need to subscribe for a fee. Print newspapers are losing advertising to the online versions - the price you pay for that newspaper does little to offset the cost of publishing it ... that has always been the role of advertising. Advertising rates have always been controlled by certified circulation rates, and those can be determined quite easily in the online world.

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing? As I said, I spent the last 20 years of my career working for a publisher of print magazines, but as they started placing content online, more and more that became a major part of my responsibilities. Designers and layout artists shouldn't necessarily lose their jobs. (In my case, my retirement came a bit earlier than planned as my publisher decided to go offshore with all production work for cost reasons. I was lucky enough to be able to retire, and all of the others in my department found work before the last day.) Printers and their employees however could find themselves in a situation of possibly losing work.

Yet, how do you stop progress? The genie cannot be put back into the bottle. To be honest, while we still get home delivery of our local newspaper, and my wife looks forward to reading it when she comes home from work, I have always been an early adopter of new technology and have been getting my news online for many years now. Even that local newspaper which we get every day has an online presence, and I have read it before our print version is delivered.

No longer do we have to wait for the newspaper to be delivered to read the latest news, or have to wait until the next edition for late breaking news. The radio and then TV started the trend away from newspapers and online editions continue that trend. In fact, since newspapers can have their own issues online - unlike with radio and TV - perhaps this will be less harmful to those who work in the publishing arena.

Another advantage is that I can now read news articles from local newspapers across the US and the world, and read about things that happen without a NYcentric or UScentric slant. And yes, I will admit, that when one of the local sports teams that I root for beats an out of town team, I enjoy reading about it in the other team's local newspaper.

I used to have a regular column in a US magazine and one in a UK magazine in the 1980's. I would think that my US readers might have enjoyed reading my UK column (and vice versa) if there were an online world in those days.

I have mixed feelings here as you might expect, having worked for so long in publishing. You can't stop technology or progress. What is happening to newspapers is also occurring with magazines. To be honest, with the quality of today's tablets, I find myself buying - and subscribing to - the magazines I read regularly from my tablet and enjoy the convenience of not having so many lying around the house. I love to keep many of them around for future reference. So yes, I am among those who prefer my magazines and newspapers online.

What about you?


(Related: E-books: Devil or Angel?)

It Started With a Grunt!

One grunt for "yes" and two grunts for "no".

Okay, we don't have to go that far back to examine the revolution in communications that we are in the midst of. In fact, we don't have to go back before the internet became a common household fixture. One can choose a number of starting dates, but the one I choose is 1982, because that was that year that the TCP/IP standards were adopted, allowing for a world-wide network of interconnected computers which we call The Internet.

My first contact with the online world came in the mid 1980's when I discovered BBS's, CompuServe and MCI Mail. Of course the only available modems at the time were dial up, 300 baud, so you had to tie up your phone line for a very slow connection. You could literally watch the letters appear on your screen one at a time. And if you didn't have a local number (or 800 number) to call, the phone call could get very expensive all by itself.

At this point "being online" consisted generally of being a member of a large database such as CompuServe, or a home based bulletin board system (BBS). The advantage of the large databases were that they consisted of more than forums, and you could actually get a bit of information from them, and perhaps buy something from one of the few pioneer vendors involved. And you also had access to the newest cool thing on the block ... email. However, bulletin boards had the advantage of being free - there were rather substantial fees for CompuServe - and were all about the forums. In fact, sitting right next to me on the table near my desk where I am writing this, is an old "AT" model computer on which I ran my own BBS. Problem was that when I first started it I could only run it at night, since it tied up my phone line. When I moved into a house, it got its own phone line.

MCI Mail was a great service for me while I was writing for a UK magazine. I could upload my article directly from my computer to MCI Mail who would send it to their office in the UK where it would get printed and then delivered to my editor in London.

Another popular place for like minded people to gather was on Usenet - a series of newsgroups arranged as forums for particular topics.

Then it happened. The internet - not quite as we know it now - started to become available to the general public. (I was lucky that I worked for a magazine publisher who was connected to the internet in the days before graphical browsers. Anyone remember Gopher?) In the 1990's company's known as Internet Service Providers (ISP's) began to crop up. For a monthly fee you could dial into their servers for access to the internet. 2400 baud modems had appeared on the scene. Eventually, BBS's started disappearing and online forums started appearing. The local dial-up BBS disappeared quickly. It took a bit longer, but services such as CompuServe (and later America Online) would no longer serve the function that was being served much better on the internet - especially once graphical browsers appeared on the scene. Email also became more and more prevalent since signing up for an ISP also gave you a number of email addresses. Now you could connect with online merchants as well as find places to gather with others of similar interests. Information started to become available until you could find almost anything you needed to. With the right software - basically BBS type software but now written to work within the browser - you could now gather and meet people from not only your immediate calling area - but from around the world. Forums proliferated and you could find one (or many) on just about any topic.

Then the next step came - social networking. With MySpace and then Facebook, the social aspect of the internet changed completely. More and more the forums lost their steam (though thousands still exist and are very popular) and people started connecting through this new social network. Very different than what had gone before - people started connecting - not only with current friends, but reconnecting with friends from the past. Twitter followed - connecting people in 140 character bursts. All of a sudden, you could even connect with your favorite celebrity or politician. Twitter was a large part of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

And let's not forget things such as Skype which gives us the ability to talk in real time - face to face with anyone, anywhere in the world!

BBS ---> Usenet ---> private databases ---> World Wide Web ---> Social Network ---> video chatting ... and it is still evolving. At each turn, at least part of the previous technology became obsolete and the use slowed down or stopped. Many a very active forum has now gone all but inactive as its participants switch to other means of staying in touch. Who knows what will come next to make our current communications obsolete?

After much consideration ...

I have been saying that I will do this for a long time. Finally I will give voice to the inner dialogues I always am having. (No, I don't mean I am hearing voices - and anyway, they like me better than they like you.)

So here we are, a new year ... 2011. I remember when that was the stuff of science-fiction. Remember the novel 1986? Or how about the TV show, Space: 1999? Yes, I am from the era when TV was black and white, phone calls to another state where expensive and only for emergencies, and telephones had to be attached to the wall by a wire, and a game which gave you the right answer by connecting an electrical circuit was amazing. Computers? They were something that big corporations had that filled a whole room with flashing lights, huge reels of magnetic tape and punch cards. How did we ever survive you ask. But we did.

So I was thinking about what earth shattering and totally captivating topic should I pick for my first blog entry ... my reactions to the horrific events that have taken place in Arizona ... the frightening floods in Australia ... my latest trip to Walt Disney World? And then a friend (in Queensland, Australia - site of the current horrendous flooding) tweeted this, "It's a small world. There is just one moon and one golden sun." and it got me thinking about just how small the world has become thanks to the internet.

For those like me, whose "touchable" world as we were growing up was our immediate block and our neighborhood, imagine the amazing ability all of a sudden to be part of a truly global community.

My first steps into that world - in the days before the internet was available to everyone - was through dial-up BBS's (bulletin board systems). In fact, on the table next to me I still have an old AT clone which I can still turn on and have my own bbs connected to the world. Of course, you still needed to make a phone call and keep the line tied up while you were connected, and long distance, even a short distance away, was relatively expensive, but you could now connect and "meet" a wider circle of people.

And then it happened ... the internet. I first became connected at work, where email - still a new concept then - was common, especially since we dealt with people in all parts of the world. But when I was introduced to Gopher, a non-graphical internet interface, my world changed. I soon discovered CompuServe and others of that ilk that were the main conduit of internet connectivity in those days. And then a new phenomenon - Internet Service Providers (ISP's) began appearing and you could connect directly to the net without subscribing to an information provider as well.

BBS's were replaced with forums (fora?) and soon I was meeting people with similar interests from other parts of the US. At first they were no more than "handles" that preceded text based messages. But then as we traveled, or they traveled, I started meeting some of the "handles" and they now were flesh and blood people who I could talk face to face with. People with whom I share interests online have become people I have met. (Hello to all you RADPers and LPers!)

Soon it was more than people in the US, I started connecting with folks in other countries who I would never have had the ability to have met before this revolution in communications. Imagine "meeting" people who live in Australia - about as far away from where I live as you can get - and becoming friends. And then, in fact, meeting one and sharing the common interest that originally created the friendship? Yes, that has happened.

Yet I have heard people say that online friends aren't "real" friends. I have to disagree, especially now when communication with someone on the other side of the world is easier today (via text, voice, and picture) than calling someone in another state just a few miles away was when I was a kid. And it is free! (What do you think? Are online friends "real" friends? Comment below.)

But now, when tragedy strikes as is currently happening in Australia with the floods, it's not just something I may (or may not) see for a brief moment on the nightly news, but it strikes home as I know so many people who actually not only live in Australia, but in Queensland where the floods are now consuming (yes that is what I meant to say) an area larger than Texas - or France & Germany combined, if you prefer. I now have concern for flesh and blood people who I truly worry about.

(No matter where you live, I urge you to help in any way you can. Here is a good place to start if you would like to help the relief effort. I have.  Queensland Premier's Flood Relief Appeal )

And there you have my first attempt at a brain dump. Expect to hear my thoughts on things as important as the Arizona shootings in the future, but don't be surprised by my showing off and bragging about my grandtwins. I won't promise that there will be an entry every day, though at times there might be, but I do intend to have at least one update a week. Please stop by and share your thoughts with me as well. And, oh yeah, spread the word about this blog - the more the merrier.