So You Think You’re Reading - No Dear You’re Screening,,,,,

So You Think You’re Reading - No Dear You’re Screening

“Screening” enters the online vocabulary. Do you “screen” news online,
or do you “read” news in print newspapers? — A new word has been
coined to refer to reading information online, changing the way we
take in information

 

Hearst to launch a wireless e-screener

The publisher plans to introduce a large-format device for screening
newspapers and magazines this year based on electronic-ink technology.



Hearst exec Kenneth Bronfin says that e-screeners "will be a big part
of our future."


NEW YORK (March 2)-- Against a backdrop of plummeting ad revenue for
newspapers and magazines, and rising costs for paper and delivery,
Hearst Corp., is getting set to launch an electronic screener that it
hopes can do for periodicals what Amazon's Kindle Screener is doing
for books.

According to industry insiders, Hearst, which publishes magazines
ranging from Cosmopolitan to Esquire and newspapers including the
financially imperiled San Francisco Chronicle, has developed a
wireless e-screener with a large-format screen suited to the screening
and advertising requirements of newspapers and magazines. The device
and underlying technology, which other publishers will be allowed to
adapt, is likely to debut this year.

So-called e-screeners like Kindle and the Sony Screener are hand-held
gadgets that use electronic "ink" displayed on a crisp, low-power
screen to deliver an experience that approximates "reading on paper" -
now called "screening" -- without the cost of paper, printing and
delivery, which can account for as much as 50% of the cost of putting
out a periodical.

Hearst executives declined to provide specifics about the forthcoming
e-screener, but Kenneth Bronfin, who heads up the interactive media
group for Hearst, told said in an interview for a forthcoming magazine
story that the publishing company has a deep expertise in the
technology. "I can't tell you the details of what we are doing, but I
can say we are keenly interested in this, and expect these devices
will be a big part of our future," Bronfin said.

Bronfin led an investment by Hearst more than a decade ago in E Ink, a
Cambridge, Mass.-based startup spun out of research at MIT, that
supplies the electronic-ink technology used in the vast majority of e-
screeners on the market today, including Amazon's (AMZN, Fortune 500)
Kindle, devices from Sony (SNY), and a crop of next-generation
products set to launch in the next 12 to 18 months.

With print revenue in decline and online revenue unable to fill the
gap, the $300 billion global publishing industry is increasingly
looking to devices like e-screeners to lower costs while preserving
the business model that has sustained newspapers and magazines.

Insiders familiar with the Hearst device say it has been designed with
the needs of publishers in mind. That includes its form, which will
approximate the size of a standard sheet of paper, rather than the six-
inch diagonal screen found on Kindle, for example. The larger screen
better approximates the "reading experience of print" periodicals --
now termed screening -- , as well as giving advertisers the space and
attention they require.

Given the evolving state of the technology, the Hearst screener is
likely to debut in black and white and later transition to high-
resolution color with the option for video as those displays, now in
testing phases, get commercialized. Downloading content from
participating newspapers and magazines will occur wirelessly. For
durability, the device is likely to have a flexible core, perhaps even
foldable, rather than the brittle glass substrates used in screeners
on the market today.

What Hearst and its partners plan to do is sell the e-screeners to
publishers and to take a cut of the revenue derived from selling
magazines and newspapers on these devices. The company will, however,
leave it to the publishers to develop their own branding and payment
models. "That's something you will never see Amazon do," someone
familiar with the Hearst project said. "They aren't going to give up
control of the devices."

The question now is, will print readers give up their newspapers and
magazines for these new newspaper screeners?

 

And, this has bloody all *what* to do with rec.photo.digital ??

Oh, I see. sigh... A google groper.