the end of print

no, I’m not talking about david carson’s deconstruction masterpiece, but rather this story on how *gasp* gen-x/y is no longer reading newspapers!

yeah, I know… old news, right? why is this different from oh, 1999, when the internet boom was at its peak? no one was reading newspapers then, even fewer are now. this is, after all, the reason why sites like the new york times and washington post started asking for registration, and why salon went pay-only.

there are two reasons why there’s been more of a drop-off in readership/viewership in recent times than ever before, the most important being the explosion in the number of weblogs (blogs) and their acknowledgement as an “alternative” news outlet. blogs feature content that is both timely and up-to-date (and usually accurate) that newspapers and network news broadcasts could never hope to keep up with. there is that whole biased-reporting thing, but for every libertarian zealot, you’re sure to find a religious nut. it all evens out.

the other reason is the growing acceptance of rss/atom syndication. syndication is like channel surfing, but only on your favorite channels, so you don’t have to skip through the home shopping network.

rss evolved from “push” technology. remember that? it was supposed to be the next big thing, where content producers were going to stream live data to you constantly, like a cnn ticker stapled to your forehead. turns out all we ever got was ads and a bloated mess of information, not to mention a very clogged network from all of the useless data being streamed. without being able to customize the content, people quickly grew tired of “push” and it died pretty quickly.

rss on the other hand, allows you to customize what you want to see, generally without advertising or eye candy involved. the idea is to strip out all the useless stuff and leave just the bare information – either full articles as they arrive, or just a preview of what’s been updated. it’s not meant to replace, but rather to complement the web. instead of visiting your favorite websites one after the other, you can see what’s new one each one at a glance, and decide for yourself whether or not it’s worth your precious time.