The Auricle

by Derek Morrison, 3 January 2010

N.B. The following online essay represents the views of the author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing the views of any other individual or organisation.

In my posting Tensions are prelude to virtual space and e-publishing wars? (Auricle, 6 December 2009) I wasn’t convinced that the print news media attempts to embrace the possibilities of digital space were being fully realised. But why is Auricle so exercised by what is happening to the print news media at all? After all this is a blog dedicated to information, reflections and perspectives about learning technologies as they affect higher education? I suggest that it is a highly relevant issue because what is being played out here is a microcosm of the challenges and responses that all traditional models and infrastructures are also beginning to face (even if they haven’t fully recognised it yet) and so the responses of the print news media provide a living case study from which we should all be prepared to learn. The internet has played a signficant part in rapidly and completely disrupted the print news media’s tradtional business models on a global scale. A recent article by Roy Greenslade (Guardian, 14 December 2009) cites data released by ABC (the media industry’s reporting body) showing that there have been circulation falls ranging from ~15-55%. But the print media are beginning to gear up their responses and so over the Xmas holiday I took the opportunity to investigate and experience some of the digital download offerings now on offer from the world’s press. Why digital downloads? Surely online is better? Not necessarily.

To date the response of the print news media to the internet challenge has been to develop online sites which are effectively web based analogues of their daily print offerings thus making the potentially fatal assumption that the always-on internet connected computer would be the optimal delivery device for the majority of digital users. Fairly unobtrusively, however, the print media seems to have recognised that the downloadable podcast model backed by an iTunes-like service may be a better way to go. So over the Xmas holiday I took the opportunity to investigate and experience some of what the print news media is beginning to offer for reading on a smartphone since this is similar to (and indeed also incorporates) the highly portable and convenient player which made the whole podcast/music download market viable. This posting is an account of my experiences and reflections but in summary I find myself grudgingly impressed with what I’ve experienced so far rating it as a 5.5 out of 10 with 10 being best.

I’ve seen enough technologies come and go to be quite happy to let the early adopters blaze a technological trail before pitching my hat (or my wallet) in the ring when technologies have matured sufficiently to offer considerably more affordances than constraints and so, despite my professional interest, I’ve eschewed using a smartphone to date. But for the purposes of my investigation relatives generously gave me access to both an Apple iPhone 3Gs and an iTouch 32GB – the latter effectively being an iPhone 3Gs without the phone, video or compass functions. Readers should note that the Apple 3Gs has been around since June last year and it was a partial response to complaints about battery life and lack of responsiveness in the standard iPhone 8GB model. As a result the standard model is now on offer at reduced rates for the unwary or for those with lower expectations/requirements but it is effectively an obsolete technology that has already been eclisped by its more efficient, functional, and expensive 3Gs sibiling.

I quickly found that the iPhone 3Gs was the marriage of a highly usable device with a good touch screen interface, good display resolution, effective enabling applications, good services and excelled with content prepared for the mobile format.. The first service I tried was the BBC’s iPlayer. It worked seamlessly. The video commenced playing so rapidly I had assumed my borrowed iPhone had already downloaded the video; but I was mistaken. There is, currently, no official iPhone application (app) and so it is not possible at the moment to download an iPlayer video thus iPlayer’s streaming service via a browser must be used. The iPhone 3Gs had, however, connected so rapidly via WiFi that the movie was actually being streamed via the local broadband connection using the 3Gs’ Safari browser. The rapidy of WiFi connection was most impressive particulary when compared to the boot up and connection times of most computers, even netbooks. Much to my surprise I found that the touch-screen/gesture interface of the iPhone 3Gs/iTouch also made for an adequate device for browsing web sites even those that had not been designed for such a mobile device. The ability to rapidly pan, scroll and zoom using only fingers was a relevation. As a result accessing the online sites of the print press media was considerably easier than switching on a computer and waiting for it to boot up. But the primary purpose of this investigation was to assess the iPhone 3Gs/iTouch as an offline reading device focused principally on print press offerings.

Again I found myself quite impressed but only after grasping two key concepts, i.e. that of the enabling application (app) and the need for a “virtual newsagent”.

In my previous article Tensions are prelude to virtual space and e-publishing wars? (Auricle, 6 December 2009) I had suggested that the print press media needed to provide an experience that equals or betters that of the small value ad hoc transaction of buying a newspaper or magazine from a vendor. I found that they are getting pretty close although the concept is not yet quite of a micropayments model. For example the Guardian offers an iPhone app (GBP 2.59) which makes navigation of a digital download of that publication on a mobile device very usable and is similar to the ease of using of downloading and listening to an MP3 file execept in this case the download is a copy of the Guardian.

Guardian iPhone App (www.guardian.co.uk/iphone)

However, let us now turn to the “iNewsagent” concept of the title of this posting.

Although receiving considerably less fanfare than Apple’s iTunes service a considerable proportion of the international mainstream press has quietly been supporting what I’ve referred to as an “iNewsagent” service developed by NewspaperDirect (www.newspaperdirect.com) which has offices in the UK, Germany and Canada. NewspaperDirect offers a PressReader application for a variety of devices including iPhones (via the iTunes Store) which enables a download of whatever newspaper you have signed up for which could include: the Cherokee County Herald (USA); the Straits Times (Singapore); the Phnom Penh Post (Cambodia) a facility that should be of interest to students of media and expatriates everywhere. Although this PressReader iPhone app sometimes appears a bit unstable and unpredictable in its results, e.g. selecting English as the language would sometimes cause a crash of the app (but not the phone) and sometimes newspapers would appear in one category but not another it mostly achieves what it sets out to do. It is effectively an online global newsagent from which you can select the “newspaper” from your country and language of your choice and a few minutes later it is downloaded onto your iPhone/iTouch. After that it can be read offline.

PressReader iPhone free app from ITunes store (www.apple.com/uk/iTunes)

But how do you pay the vendor? Although I had a free trail period I wanted to experience the charging process and because my sacrifice in pursuit of knowledge knows no bounds 🙂 I deliberately exceeded my free quota and up popped the ubiquitous iTunes Store requesting a modest payment of GBP 0.59 which would be charged against my relative’s iTunes account. Now GBP 0.59 is sufficiently less than the cover price of the paper copy of the same newspaper to just about encourage me to make such a download prior to jumping on a train somewhere; and all achieved without leaving my home. Indeed as a result of paying for such downloads I did not buy a paper copy during the period of my investigation and deliberately read my morning newspaper from either the iPhone or iTouch.

I think that the cost of such downloads are critical. If the media industries wish to wean people onto the idea of paying for digital content then they need to make the cost and charging process as painless as possible. A premium price model will suit only a wealthy minority. For example, despite much trumpeting about starting to charge for online content the UK’s Times does not currently offer an iPhone download via PressReader, although NewspaperDirect have informed me that such an app will be available soon. The Times does, however, offer a downloadable “e-paper” version via the NewspaperDirect service but for ad hoc copies this Times download is more expensive than the print version by a considerable margin. Why? It should surely be considerably cheaper but the fee structure for the Times’ e-paper indicates a distinct bias towards encouraging subscriptions. That’s unfortunate. A business model based on paying a premium for downloading an ad hoc digital edition may work in narrow specialist contexts but could well just inhibit take-up in the broader consumer marketplace. If the press wants to escape the purgatory of an increasingly leaky existing business model on the one hand, and building on an evolving but immature digital business model on the other, they are going to have to encourage people to make the move. Premium prices for digital content is not encouragement; it’s a disincentive for the majority. The cover price for the daily print edition of The Times is GBP 0.90p but yet for the privilege of a single download of a daily digital edition it shoots up to 2.50 GBP. I won’t be including the Times in any future assessment exercise until this price disparity between the Times and their competitors disappears and assuming I’m typical of users that might not be so good for their digital transition. The charge of 0.59 for other digital downloads via the PressReader iPhone app is more reasonable and hopefully the Times and other would-be premium chargers will take note. Existing incumbent in the media production and distribution space should also perhaps take note of the power of the somewhat frighteningly efficient synergy of the PressReader app, the NewspaperDirect service and the ITunes service for small payments.

The Times' e-paper site 2 Jan 2010 showing fee structure (timesonline.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx)

I now offer a few other reflections on my journey through both the online and offline press offerings when compared to their print siblings.

Firstly, is a potentially large and growing variance between the content of paper and online versions of newspapers. A good example of this has been inadvertently provided by the Guardian which ceased offering a printed version of its Technology section on 17 December 2009; a section that had existed for 25 years. This was a risky strategic change given that many people buy specific editions of newspapers because of specialist sections. The Guardian, however makes reassuring noises about the Technology supplement still being provided online. But I, and I assume many others, can’t or don’t want to read newspapers online and tethered to a computer and so we opt for the download service and plan to read it on our chosen device. But, because the download of the Guardian is based on the printed version and because the specialist section is no longer in the printed version it’s only available in the online version! This is the same Guardian newspaper that trumpets its iPhone app and makes a charge for it. Some rapid rethinking of the business model is perhaps necessary here.

Another aspect of print versus digital variance is in finding and signposting content. For example, the print version of the UK Sunday Times of 27 December 2009 offered an interesting essay by Bryan Appleyard 9/11: When all that was solid melted into the air. I wanted to see how easy it would have been to come accross this same essay on the online version of the The Times. I had not reckoned on just how invisible they apparently wanted this essay to be online. I browsed and searched the main Times Online site and the the Times mobile offering. On the main online site I had to search for all Bryan Appleyard articles to find it, but that assumed I already new of the essay’s existence but that’s not how people read newspapers or magazines. My search of the mobile site proved fruitless. Why so difficult? One clue is in the URI of the online article, i.e. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6966374.ece. To find this I would have to have actively explore the “news > world > us_and_americas” subdomains of the URI. In the paper version I just scan the contents page and focus in on the essay by Bryan Appleyward. If the press media wants to start charging for online content then it first of all needs to make it easy for us to know it exists and then make it easy for us to read it.

Secondly, we the end-users, the newspaper industry, and those developing smartphones would really benefit from some standards based approach to downloading such media content similar to what MP3 enables with audio. And does it really need each newspaper to offer its own custom smartphone app? The chargeable Guardian iPhone app, however, is superior to the free PressReader app but surely it would benefit everyone for the press as a whole to invest in something really robust and good?

Thirdly, would everyone benefit from an IBM PC equivalent for a smartphone which anyone could build as long as it met the base specification? Google seems to have pitched its Android specification into this particular ring and backed that up with its own Nexus One offering which is pending release at the time of writing. Apple, however, has an impressive lead and application base – and that oh so successful iTunes Store. Google, however, has impressively deep pockets.

Fourthly, these mobile devices that making reading an e-newpaper, e-magazine, e-journal, and e-book possible are frighteningly expensive and not particularly robust. Buying a 0.90p print newspaper is within the means of most people but yet to participate in this particular aspect of the digital revolution I must either have sufficient disposable income to purchase such a device and support its recurring costs, or work for an employer prepared to provide me with one. We should also remember that the various sections of a print newspaper can be spread around a family or group, read in parallel and exchanged when read. But to particpate in this aspect of the digital revolution each member of the family or group either has to wait until one member is finished reading and borrow the device or have their own compatible device and potentially incur their own download charges. Consequently there are a plethora of access and digital divide issues embedded in this arena. From a robustness perspective when I drop a copy of my print newspaper on the floor I merely pick it up, do that with an iPhone and you are likely to be calling your insurance company or contacting your employer to explain why they need to make a claim. It may well be of course that, much like MP3 players eventually did, the price of such devices will fall to such a point that they will come within the reach of the majority and so this issue will disappear. We are perhaps at the same stage of development of such devices as the early personal computers were. Alternatively, what if the print media operators decided to subsidise the cost of such devices in return for a long-term subscription to their particular offerings?

Fifthly, my reading behaviour changed when using the iPhone in comparison to the paper product. By that I mean it was different rather than better or worse. One of the key advantages of the paper versions of newspapers and magazines is the ability to rapidly scan a relatively large information landscape and then focus on an item or article of interest. The visual real estate of a smartphone or device like the iPhone/iTouch is tiny by comparison. But yet I was surprised to find the “greeked” representation of a full newspaper page provided a navigable approximation to the paper experience. This was achieved because the iPhone app provided readable hyperlinked headlines plus either rapid zooming/rescaling of the display, or by providng an alternative linear text view of the article; all activated via gestures traced on the iPhone touchscreen interface. The experience of reading a full newspaper on the iPhone was certainly different but perfectly acceptable. I also feel I moved through the articles of interest at a considerably more rapid pace than I would have done using the paper version. I’m not sure whether that’s necessarily a good thing. I reflect often on the 2008 CIBER study The Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future about how technologies risk turning us all into browsers (grazers) of information rather than ruminators. I think also that the PressReader iPhone application could do more to present an integrated solution than it currently does. For example, when I buy the paper version of a newspaper it may well come in multiple sections but I have a sense of them all belonging to each other whereas the way the PressReader digital downloads are presented suggest almost that the various sections are not being offered as part of a cohesive whole since they are not aggregated together but are scattered throughout a list of sometimes unrelated offerings.

Sixthly, perhaps related to the pace I can navigate the digital download version newspaper, I also have a different sense of value and the price I would be prepared to pay for content. Put starkly, I am already placing a much lower monetary value than the cover price of the print edition of the newsaper, e.g. I am certainly happier paying GBP 0.59 instead of the GBP 0.90 cover price mainly because I found myself skimming in a way I wouldn’t have done with the print edition and so ‘consumed’ it more quickly. But perhaps I’m just atypical? Perhaps I just need to get used to doing more reflective reading using a mobile device. Perhaps there’s lot we still need to find out about how people’s behaviours change when using such devices?

Seventhly, there are other pretenders to the e-newspaper, e-magazine, e-journal, e-book throne all vying to become the platform of choice. At the time of writing PlasticLogic is about to launch its QUE device and Apple is expected to offer some form of larger format touch screen device based on iPhone technology (iSlate is rumoured). Meanwhile the Amazon Kindle is both showcasing the advantages (and disadvantages) of using cellphone technology to download e-book and other content (while locking users into a proprietary format). Readers interested in this aspect of the technological tsunami may also be interested in Is this what the magazine of the future will look like? (Guardian, 18 December 2009) which features Mag+ a video concept piece by Bonnier which I feel is worth 8 minutes of our time. iPhone users will recognise some similarities in the gesture interface and if Apple’s rumoured tablet device (iSlate?) comes to fruition, gains traction and influences this area of development then we might be seeing more than concept pieces sooner than the video below implies.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Despite the exciting possibilities illustrated by the likes of the above I think there is considerable potential here for incompatible options that attempt to lock users into one platform or patent holder to make the Blue-Ray versus HD DVD high definition video competing standards look like a minor skirmish. We should perhaps take note that when the majority of consumers are faced with such uncertainty their risk management strategies include “do nothing”.

In conclusion I know there is currently a big “cloud” buzz but we still live in a world where online access is sporadic either by choice or by the nature of our environment or activities, e.g. travel. In these cases online provides an opportunity to “fill up” with content ‘fuel’ for when we will be offline an aspect we should consider more rather than be wedded to a rapidly ageing VLE paradigm. A digital download of a newspaper, magazine, book, journal, audio or video content needs, therefore, to be fast, easy and reasonably (not premium) priced. With my pedagogue’s hat on I’ve reflected on what I called “e-learning filling stations” in previous Auricle postings. So I score this particular content “filling station” experience as a 5.5 out of 10 or as “shows much promise but has some way to go”. Much of that promise came more from the combination of the device and the enabling apps I was using rather than the content but at least I think we are heading in the right direction. While I’m no accolyte or “evangelist” for any particular technology brand the iPhone 3Gs/iTouch has certainly shown that a small hand held device when allied to good interfaces (visual and touch) can open up new possibilties for learning and acquiring information.

Postscripts

1. Although the iPhone 3Gs/iTouch may well play streaming iPlayer and YouTube videos (which are Adobe Flash movie (flv) based) it’s a real pity that the ubiquitous Flash movie format isn’t currently supported outside these environments. Many web sites, including the BBC offer such rich media pages and the absence of broader support for the Flash movie format in the iPhone spoils an otherwise good experience for users.
2. Those interested in the educational possibilties of mobile learning may find something of interest in the various “m-learning” publications of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) in Reusable Learning Objects (alias the RLO CETL).
3. ALT’s Seb Schmoller drew my attention to this interesting posting by LearnDirect’s Dick Moore Footprint in your pocket and head in the cloud -The Little Black Device. Dick’s article makes many different points from my own but it’s certainly worth a read.
4. Jeff Jarvis, journalism professor at the City University of New York offers a US perspective in USA: Internet media continue to evolve, old media flirt with extinction (Guardian, 4 January 2010) which includes “If, instead of the same tired debates over old media, you seek something new, go mobile. In 2010, we will see Google battle Apple for the right to connect us, not just with each other but with information about any place, any thing and anyone“.