Who says the Newspaper is dying?

Could you imagine accessing and reading digital newspapers from kiosks like this using coins or smart cards? They can be set up at transport hubs, waiting lounges, and even newsvendors for the public to browse and read news of the day. Initial investment might be high, but the long-term revenue model certainly can be considered.

THE recent vote sway during the Malaysian Elections that caused the ruling coalition to lose many of its seats in Parliament and State Assemblies have been attributed to new media, specifically online news portals, and non traditional media

Several online news portals have been set up days before the election and have gained some success in attracting web traffic.

With declining street sales of newspapers, and adspend moving online, established publishers are looking towards investing in cyberspace to hedge their core businesses. Many are now zooming in on the internet news content, to discover new business models online as print news industry quietly goes into menopause.

But the truth is, the NEWSPAPER IS NOT dying. Print is, and certainly the next decade, but definitely not the newspaper - at least not those that you and I know - as a news casting tool.

If you have not looked beyond the new media hype, please do. Shut out the noise generated by this preconceived ideas that the only way to survive is on the net.

Spend a moment and think about the newspaper as the dissemination tool. It really doesn't matter if the newspaper is in its physical printed form or digitally accessible alternatives which were born several years ago.

Pay attention to the production process - up to just before printing takes place. Yes, the digital version of a physical newspaper produced by desktop publishing softwares that can come in all shapes, sizes and capabilities. Then think Adobe Acrobat viewing. Indeed the newspaper has evolved, in case you have not noticed.

Printing plants may be dying and their ink well may dry up, and demand for physical newspapers could drop over the next five years or even earlier, but not the demand for digital newspapers viewable through all sorts of devices of tomorrow.

I think this term will continue to live in the new media tools that will emerge, if they have not already. Yes, I am talking about viewing devices which can be as small as a PDA screen or as big as a A2 size touchscreen panels at information kiosks you see at supermarkets. Or even bigger ones. These are where the new newspaper will emerge as a born-again member of the new media.

The viewing technology are already and Adobe has one of the biggest yet - known simply as Adobe Digital Editions.

Not only you can use it to read and manage eBooks and other digital publications, it also works online and offline and supports PDF - and XHTML-based, including Adobe Flash (SWF formats) for multimedia interactivity. Best of all, it is downloadable for free. And guess what, it is only one of the many out there that is being developed at feverish speed.

And you still think the newspaper will die?