Kindle love from Washington Post Company CEO—but can his newspaper learn to appreciate others’ iPhone love?
Oh, the difference between the e-bookosphere and the mainstream media. Just when e-book bloggers are fixated on the new iPhone, the Bloomberg news service comes out with 800 words on the Kindle’s prospects. Nowhere does the article mention the e-reading threat that the Kindle could face from cellphones, handhelds and other multifunction devices.
Gillian Wee’s feature leads with the word that Donald Graham, the 63-year-old CEO of the Washington Post Company, "says he hardly ever leaves home without his Kindle digital book reader from Amazon.com Inc."
Keep reading on. And you’ll see why this CEO’s hardware tastes could be relevant, since his paper is far from fully optimized for mobile users of the nonKindle variety—the real point I want to make here. Bloomberg isn’t the only one too caught up in the Kindle craze. Ideally executives at the Post and other Kindle-ized papers, such as the L.A. Times, will think beyond the K machine. Balance, please!
"Very easy way to read"
The positive news here is that Graham at least is sold on E and has used his Kindle to read Steve Coll’s The Bin Ladens and other titles galore, as well as Newsweek and Slate, both Post properties.
"I have found it to be a very easy way to read,” Wee quotes him. "’I read a lot of books on flights and on downtime. I’ve got a bad shoulder and it can add a lot of weight to your suitcase."’
That’s a good, healthy appreciation of E, and I hope that Graham and friends can help extend it to schoolchild with bad backs from carrying heavy textbooks around; TeleRead, anyone? I’ll forever be grateful to the Washington Post for printing my op-ed on TeleRead plan. And maybe it can even follow up with an editorial, given that 2008 is an election year and education ought to be an issue.
A better mobile edition: Why I read the New York Times more than my hometown newspaper
But meanwhile isn’t it time for the Washington Post and other newspapers to care more about PDA owners and cellphone users, including perhaps iPhone owners? The offices of the digital version of the Washington Post are within maybe ten miles of me, here in Northern Virginia. But guess what? I spend at least twice as much time each day with the New York Times as with the Washington Post, the very paper I grew up on.
My reason is simple. Damned if I’ll go back to the Post’s obese dead-tree edition. And in comprehensiveness and organization, the Times’ mobile edition wins.
Why the Post’s mobile edition sucks compared to the Times’
Start with the home pages of the two rival mobile versions. The Times’ imparts more information about the stories inside. Click on the Times’ logo above each story, moreover, and you’ll go back to the home page. Not so with the Post equivalent, which, at least as displayed on my Palm TX PDA, seems to ignore this basic Web convention.
Go to the bottom of a news story in the Times, and you’ll see links to a whole bunch of sections; once again the Post loses.
I’m missing out on some good local news by paying more attention to the Times. But the navigation shortcomings of the Post’s mobile edition are endlessly vexing. Unlike the Times, the Post mobile edition even lacks a search box.
As for reading the usual Washingtonpost.com on my TX—well, that would be even messier (although iPhone owners have it easier because of a more modern browser).
And don’t say, "Just get a Kindle"
Perhaps the Post would say, "Just pay ten dollars a month for the Kindle edition."
But then, a zillion more cellphone and PDA users are out there—the iPhone variety included—than Kindle users. Perhaps it’s the Post’s role to bend a little.
Still another friendly suggestion
Wait. Here’s another issue—the fact that WiFi isn’t ubiquitous. The Times, Post and other newspapers would do well to aim for encapsulated ePub editions that people could enjoy out of range.
Newspapers should participate in the IDPF’s standards-setting and perhaps collaborate on the development of suitable client apps. Do they really want to rely so heavily on Amazon and the rest as delivery mechanisms?
What’s more, since ePub has its origins in the book publishing industry, such actions could break down technological barriers between books and newspapers. That ought to be of particular interest to the Washington Post, which, via Dearborn Financial Publishing, is involved in book publishing.
Do things right, and the phrase, "You can take it with you," will apply to news read on machines beyond the the Kindle.
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