Last week, Hugh McGuire wrote about Things Our Friends Have Written on the Internet 2008, a limited run newspaper published by London-based Ben Terrett and Russell Davies.
TOFHWOTI is a real, honest-to-goodness print publication. It lands with a thud in your mailbox, you can open it up on your kitchen table, and if you were so inclined, you could wrap fish and chips in it. But though it’s a “real” newspaper, all of its content was originally published online:
Russell and I thought it would be interesting to take some stuff from the internet and print it in a newspaper format. Words as well as pictures. Like a Daily Me, but slower. When we discovered that most newspaper printers will let you do a short run on their press (this was exactly the same spec as the News Of The World) we decided to have some fun.
It seems there’s a trend going on here. At the same time that traditional mass-market newspapers are experiencing serious financial trouble, a number of small, hyper-local publications are popping up, and blogs are providing most of the content.
The Printed Blog is a Chicago startup that calls itself “the world’s first daily newspaper comprised entirely of blogs and user-generated content.” It plans to launch later this month in three large US cities. In a recent interview with WNYC’s On The Media, Printed Blog publisher Josh Karp explains that The Printed Blog will rely on localized, niche advertising:
Here in Chicago, the Tribune Corporation produces The RedEye. It’s a free daily paper that you can pick up at train stations and numerous other places. If you wish to place an ad in The RedEye, you spend between one thousand and many more thousands of dollars and your ad appears in all 200,000 issues that they produce.
With The Printed Blog, you only have to buy ads for the locations that you’re interested in. And the bottom line is that the cost of the ad is dramatically less. It’s tens of dollars as opposed to thousands of dollars.
Another blog-sourced publishing idea is Printcasting. Funded by a two-year, $837,000 Knight News Challenge grant, Printcasting is an online tool that allows “anyone to create a local printable newspaper, magazine or newsletter that carries local advertising.” They plan to launch in March in Bakersfield, California, with content sourced primarily from blogs. In an interview last year, Printcasting’s Dan Pacheco explained that unlike online blogs, physical newspapers pass the “fridge barrier,” meaning stories get clipped and posted on refrigerators.
What do you think? Would you read a newspaper with articles culled from local blogs? (How) should bloggers be compensated when their writing is used like this? If you own a business, would you advertise in a blog-sourced paper? Leave your comments below.
I just read this post while on a break from making a birthday present for a friend, and it’s funny that the question has posed right now: I’m making a collage out pictures from the New York Times over the past few days. I think the biggest thing I’ll miss about newspapers is the physical paper, and what you can tangibly do with it–paper mache, or collage, or lining bird cages (I don’t do that one often, but I can imagine). It’s also distressing to me as a one computer consumer to think about reading the news on my computer at breakfast–and risking spilling my coffee not on the front page but on my laptop…yikes.
I’m sure I’ll figure something out–or maybe weekend breakfasts will no longer be news time.
I would definitely read a newspaper that pulls content from blogs – I’m very excited about The Printed Blog specifically. I’m part of the 20 Something Bloggers community where a number of TPB interns have been pulled from, and the interesting thing I find is that there has been some mixed reaction within the blogging world.
I think it must have something to do with pulling content from the early adopters who are started the ball rolling on the rest of us abandoning print.
I’ll be watching these projects closely though, and I’ll be jealous of the metro commuters who can read their papers. If I could find new blogs with high quality content twice a day (& maybe get some exposure myself) without using my iPhone’s data plan? I would definitely be a convert. I just hope this idea hits the prairies soon.
@Kyla,
Interesting. I just interviewed Ben Terrett, who has put out a newspaper with content from his friends’ blogs and Twitter tweets. He commented on how many of them felt really good about being in print, wanted to send a copy to their mums, etc.
Last year I printed my blog as book.
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2007/12/31/my-blog-as…
I really did bring some authority to it, however without the links, video and comments it was far less what it is online.
The printing costs about $40 for a 400+ page book. 3 years of blogging.
Wow, neat! I guess someones gotta keep a dying breed in business. I think it is interesting, you could then go on to sell advertising, hire staff. perhaps even a professional blogger
where's was Conrad on this 