As a dedicated reader of newspapers since I was 5 years old, it’s really sad to see the downfall of this great American tradition. Print subscriptions are way down, ad revenue is drying up, and Americans are becoming more and more accustomed to the up-to-date news found on the Internet. The New York Times (NYT) stock is down below $4 a share. Gannett (GCI), the owner of USA Today is down to $2 a share. McClatchy (MNI), the owner of papers like the Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, and the Charlotte Observer, is down to $.45 a share. Mike Simonton, an industry analyst, says “In 2009 and 2010, all the two newspaper markets will become one-newspaper markets and you will start to see the one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets" (NY Times).
In the end, we all knew that mainstream reliance on newspapers couldn’t last forever but it’s still hard to watch. As if newspapers didn’t have enough to worry about, now they are about to get hit by the Apple (AAPL) train. Reports that Apple is ordering 10-inch touchscreens have been confirmed by Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters. Many are speculating that these will be used for Apple’s new netbook but I think this device will be much different than what we’re used to seeing in the netbook space. As Apple has done with the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone, I expect it to revolutionize this sector of the market.
There currently exists a major void of access with the Internet. I’ll call this void the newspaper void. Newspapers are the perfect size to read and they’re portable. The iPhone screen is not the perfect size to sit down and read a newspaper, I’m good for ten minutes of reading on the iPhone screen; anything more is too much for my
