It is very early to judge where the digital newspaper will be heading in the future, but the start has been somewhat turbulent and many changes are needed to bring it to the masses. There are multiple areas that need tweaking so let’s have a look at each-

Pricing

The Times has had some problems so far, in particular with the quality of the iPad offering, and this has resulted in 2 free months of subscription to early purchasers. In defense of it I must say that I never had a single problem and that it was the single most used app on my iPad while I had it. The layout was well thought out, the content excellent and overall I felt it was value for money. The problem is that not too many feel the same way I do.

At the same time the main website was pushed behind a paywall and users had to start buying a subscription to view the daily content. The price is £2 / week or £1 for a 24 hour pass and again the presentation is excellent. I do feel that this represents good value, but early reports suggest that almost 90% of its online readership has disappeared over night. Financially this is not a problem because more than £1 million will be generated each year on the above figures, but I would have thought that online newspaper sites should be designed to bring in more newspaper readers and not to push them away.

It’s going to take some time for people to adapt to the idea of paying for online content because the idea of a free internet is still very much an overriding state of mind. Apps, like the iPad options, should do better, but initial figures suggest that people are struggling with the concept here as well.

It’s not there

The fact that there is no paper involved means that buyers are not getting anything physical for their money. This is still a concern for some music buyers who want the CD, film buyers who want the DVD and book buyers who want a book to hold. We are a long way down the road in digital music and still there are many who want the physical product so a long road needs to be travelled for newspapers to reach out to the majority.

A dwindling industry

The fact is that newspaper readership has been dwindling for some time because of the Internet, Satellite TV and many other competing factors. We lead busier lives and the time available for content consumption has reduced over the past decade. This should offer the digital newspaper a slim advantage over the paper version, but you still need to spend time reading it to enjoy it. Making a dwindling industry digital will not make it grow- it just makes it digital.

I personally think there is a future for digital newspapers, and potentially a very big one, but we will have to wait sometime longer for the readership to match the potential.