Try reading your laptop on the bus
May 05 '00Top 10 reasons why newspapers are not under any kind of serious threat from online news purveyors at this time.
1. You can't read your news on a computer while commuting to work, especially if you're holding onto a strap with one hand.
2. You can't clip coupons from your laptop. OK, you can, but it really plays hob with the motherboard.
3. National Online news purveyors do not give you ANY local news. People like local news. I don't know why they want to know about Ettie Marshall's son making Eagle Scout, but they do.
4. You can't skim the headlines online. You can flip through a paper 10 times faster than you can scroll through a website. Scroll a computer that fast and you will get whiplash.
5. No one has developed a good way to coupon local businesses online. There's no incentive for the news companies to do and it's too expensive for the local businesses. Even local websites have been slow to coupon. Afraid of oversaturation, , perhaps?
6. News sites aren't spending their bandwidth on weddings, engagements, obituaries of people no one but their family every heard of and announcements of chili suppers. These are critical items to readers. You make a mistake in one of these, and the entire family is on the phone to you.
7. Computers make lousy wrapping for glass items when you're moving.
8. With newspapers, you don't need a phone jack, a power outlet, a CPU a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse (or a laptop) and a chair to read. You can't read the news online while reclining in your hammock on a pretty summer day.
9. Newspapers contain way too much data to put online ó legal ads, classified ads, church calendars, etc. These are way too important to skip.
10. Try reading the news online while on the toilet.