Will Newspapers Start Selling Special Printers Now?

from the desperation-sets-in dept

Fri, Mar 13th 2009 5:28pm — Mike Masnick

Reader Cannen alerts us to the fact that MediaNews wants to experiment with the idea of letting people create custom newspapers and print them out at home via a special printer. The idea is interesting at a first pass, but the more you think about it, the less it makes sense. Who wants to get a special printer just to print out their newspaper? If they really wanted to offer this, what's wrong with letting people use the printers they already have? Or are these newspapers hoping to make more money by selling printers? Perhaps they're jealous of the ridiculous margins found in printer ink these days -- and they're hoping to cash in on selling special ink that you can only buy from them to print your paper. While I'm sure there are some people who might like this option, just so they can still read their news on paper each day, it seems like a pretty narrow market.

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Filed Under: business models, newspapers, print, printers
Companies: medianews

11 Comments

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SteveD, 13 Mar 2009 @ 5:37pm

Special paper!
What about special newspaper paper? For the authentic newspaper feeling!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2009 @ 6:42pm

Dumber than Dirt
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2009 @ 9:51pm

Is the problem actually printing it or just finding the right articles?
What is the real problem? Printing costs being paid by the newspaper?

Why not just email the news? The email consists of headlines, with links to the actual news. To keep it tidy, subscribers could have an option to recieve separate emails for each section desired- an Email with entertainment section, another for World News, another with local news, and another still for technology/editorials.

Hint: You have to logon (or have a set cookie) to read the full article.
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spaceman spiff, 13 Mar 2009 @ 10:05pm

I'll bet they want to use disappearing ink! That way, they don't have to "worry" about people sharing/archiving their newspapers (at least for long). Just think - the ink lasts just 1 day. "Dear, where is that article about disappearing news ink? ... I don't know darling. I can't find the paper!".
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simon, 14 Mar 2009 @ 1:55am

what a dumb idea
perhaps the bank of England should let us print our own money on a special printer?
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inc, 14 Mar 2009 @ 1:16pm

Newspapers should team up with amazon and subsidize the kindle with a newspaper subscription. You have the added value of letting older papers be available as well. Then stream your newspaper directly to your consumers. Take advantage of e-paper. If there is going to be printers the should be a gas stations and 7-11s like lotto machines. So they can print them on demand with the latest news. Why would a home user buy a special printer? Newspapers should custom tailor their paper to their customer. Let the client add rss feeds to external blogs and even highlight certain blogs. In exchange for those blogs getting more traffic they can ask the blogs to give them ad space for newspaper+kindle subscriptions.

Bottom line the newpapers need to evolve and with a little thought outside the box they have plenty of opportunity to do so.
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ToySouljah, 14 Mar 2009 @ 6:33pm

but will it be like a real newspaper?
I'm hoping if they do this that they can at least make the ink smudge so you get that authentic newspaper feel...lmao :)
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Peter Thomas, 16 Mar 2009 @ 3:46am

If only...
If only there was some kind of 'electronic display' that you could attach to a computer, like a screen of some sorts, so that you could view news without having to waste ink or paper. When will the technology industry come up and manufacture such a 'monitor'?
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Rodney Gagnon, 16 Mar 2009 @ 5:32am

Personalization if the future, printing is the past.
Personalizing content is what we all need. Sifting through the mountains of clutter to get the information we want or need is a demoralizing task. Help me save time by giving me only the information that I need. Printing it is not an issue. The ink in my printer dries before I need to load paper.
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Mark Rosedale (profile), 16 Mar 2009 @ 8:21am

People would actually do this?
I do read one printed news paper. It is free and handed to me as I get on the Subway. The only reason I read this is because I don't have an internet connection for a good majority of the trip. If I am at home or somewhere with an internet connection and the news is right in front of me on a screen why on earth would I print it? I see very little value in this at all. Crazy talk and doomed to fail.
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lrobbo (profile), 12 Jun 2012 @ 11:20am

Very true, if it doesn't need printed then why waste your time?
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