Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the current state of the newspaper industry. The Rocky Mountain News published its last edition yesterday and the San Francisco Chronicle is hanging on by a thread. And right in my own backyard, the St. Louis Post Dispatch keeps shrinking in size, staff, content, and quality. But when you immerse yourself in the current events it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. So what is the next step for newspapers if they want to survive? In a game of chess the grand master never thinks about his next move because he already planned it 15 moves ago. So it seems right to take a step back and think broadly about the future in order to recognize the correct steps needed in the present.

How will people get their news ten years from now? Since the print medium is not likely to change much, let’s only focus on the internet for now. A William Gibson-esque version of virtual reality still seems unreasonable. What does seem almost guaranteed is that over the next ten years the personal computer as we know it today should be a thing of the past.

What the future looks like…

The future belongs to mobile devices like the iPhone and its competitors. These new devices will do everything from making a call to turning on the AC in your house 20 minutes before you get there. The screen size will likely be a little bigger than the iPhone, but still small enough to carry around. People will be able to watch TV on them as well, and wireless Heads-up displays that double up as sunglasses will overcome the limitations of the small display screens. Internet access will be mostly wireless, possibly using the broadcast spectrum recently freed by the move to digital broadcasting, and available in every corner of the city and suburbs.

That is not the future of computing. It is merely what we have today. Every technology I discussed is already available. My main point is that ten years from now every homeless person will be walking around with this kind of device. Ten years ago cellphones were still somewhat expensive. Today the iPhone is somewhat expensive too, but a couple of years from now they will be giving it away for free.

What this means for news organizations…

If everything becomes centralized on mobile devices, news organizations will have an opportunity to have a successful business model for two simple reasons:

1. They will be able to cut out the high cost of printing and delivering newspapers.
   The average age of a newspaper reader is already in the 50s. Most newspapers will eventually have to face the music and cut the print edition to 2-3 days per week while raising subscription fees. Having a much lower cost basis, newspapers will be able to hire more reporters and improve the quality of their content and value for their readers.
2. They will be able to charge mobile users for the content.
   The current problem with giving away free content on the internet will be easier to solve on mobile devices. Newspapers will be able to sell subscriptions through partnerships with cellphone companies, ISPs, and cable/satellite TV providers. The current generation is already used to paying for ringtones, games, and other services directly through their cellphones. Adding a $4.99 or $9.99 per month subscription for a newspaper will not seems outrageous to them.

What news organizations must do…

STOP GIVING YOUR CONTENT AWAY FOR FREE!!!

This is the most important point that the industry must come to grips with. Newspapers are not dying because only old people read them or because people get their news from blogs. I’m a fairly young person and I love newspapers. Well…I love news. As I’m writing this blog entry I have multiple browsers running giving me free access to the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Google News website. If you’re letting me get all this for free, why should I go out and buy your paper? I want my news from professionals who know what they’re doing. I can’t remember ever reading a blog to get actual news. I am a potential customer willing to pay for quality content. But you are happily giving it to me for free, and I am happily taking you up on your gracious offer.

How to charge people…

One of the best ideas I’ve heard so far in this whole discussion is the concept of taking the news out of the web browser. Web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari are seen by most people, including me, as free software used to access all the free information on the internet. While I have no problem paying $2.49 for an energy drink at the gas station, I sometimes spend long periods of time on Amazon.com reading reviews for used books that cost $4-$5. If I was in a store I would likely make a snap decision to just buy the book and check it out at home. After all, it’s just a few bucks. But snap decisions don’t happen to me on the internet. I research, comparison-shop, and read endless reviews before deciding to spend a couple of dollars on a website.

If newspapers take the iTunes model, requiring people to use software to access their content, readers might be more likely to pay. Looking at newspapers ten years from now, and assuming that a majority of people will access the net through mobile devices, news organizations will be able to develop an application that delivers content to subscribers who pay with their cellphone bill.

Going back to the chess metaphor, the next step is to figure out what newspapers must do today in order to still be around ten years from now. While I can barely beat the chess game on my cell phone (that I easily downloaded and paid for on my T-Mobile bill), I will attempt to lay out some logical steps that are part of a larger strategy for the future in my next post.

However, since I know a lot of people have opinion on this, I would like to invite everybody to comment on this and tell me if I’m on the right track or not. After all, interactivity and user participation will also be something that news organizations will have to master in the future.