My thought of the week: Will printed news entirely be replaced by on-line news?

I always enjoy reading Ben Boychuk’s article from Macworld, and so is this one from his latest that has inspired me for this end of the weekend thought:

”Old rituals wither and die; new rituals crop up and replace the old. When I used to work on the west side of Los Angeles, one of my favorite rituals was to stop every morning at a newsstand at Robertson Avenue and Pico Boulevard and load up on reading materials—three or four newspapers and often one or two magazines. The year was 1994. ---

--- I kept up the habit for about 18 months. Although I still read a ton of magazines, I almost never touch newsprint. But my daily ritual trip to the newsstand has been replaced by a routine check of my RSS feeds.”

His fabulous intro has got me to start thinking; technologies advance rapidly, and so is in how we use them daily. When the internet was blooming fast in the late 1990’s, nearing Y2K, on-line news has began to take its place in metropolitan people. Replacing the old ways to receive the news in form of printed papers, and to the way of reading it. It’s now faster, directly delivered in front of you in bright monitor screen; and hot right from the sources themselves.

I deliberately mentioned “metropolitan people”, instead of “modern people” because even they who live in remote area with tv & electricity can be categorized as modern. It’s just a simpler way to describe how people who live in the big cities, have now become more rely on cutting edge tech every day such as computer and 24-hours on-line with internet.

Soon enough, along with the dying metaphor with saying like “PC (Personal Computer) is not personal anymore” …unfortunately, I feel it’s more suitable to use PC instead of Mac… ~LOL~ we have found a more ‘personal’ replacement for our hectic daily live needs for computerized device: smartphones. It was first known as PDA, pioneered by Palm; and then slowly transformed as convergence device that can make/receive calls & take pictures as well we know today.

As we take smartphone everywhere, everyday to any occasions; this has changed also on how we pick up the news and read them on the go. News providers saw the wave of trend, and quickly respond with more slim and quicker delivery with RSS feeds. The RSS feed format has became a popular adopted new way, because it works even with the limited power & feature of smartphones.

With digital news, the news themselves are never gone. Because the news are stored in digital form within large server farms all over the world, and with data storage limit is reaching to the sky; the digital news are never erased and kept forever (until an accident occurred).

Social networking can also be considered as ‘citizen journalist’ channel, for one quick example is Twitter. Twitter has proven as the fastest way to tell the whole wide world about Katrina disaster, it took only few Twitter users to tell the world how it was going on in the area that was hit by Katrina. All while the news reporters and tv stations couldn’t reach the area, due to power outage and road blocks; the on-line news got the latest coverage by seconds away from the actual event took place. These Twitter users were not using desktop computers; they were using their laptops & smartphones.

So, in the end you can see the result for yourself. Especially when you’re on the way to work, commute on bus or train; “metropolitan people” are now holding smartphones instead of printed newspaper or magazines to read the news anymore. Or, maybe they’ll read e-books and today’s news with e-readers such as Kindle. It’s simpler, and you can do other things while reading like listening to last week top 10 music or tune in to internet radios.

This new trend of using convergence device, my guess is it won’t be replacing the old ways to get and read news in any time soon. No matter how much you’ll say it, like what I often heard it on PalmAddict: “It’s an amazing & interesting time of digital life we’re living today…” (or something like that ;-p), changes will always happen in slow pace. Not only because we, human are a mystery kind of being in this vast universe; we love new things but at the same time hate drastic change to the ritual we’ve so much used to…

But as newer technologies are being introduced, the old ones are pushed to the remote places in the world; and thus naturally will be replacing even the simplest old rituals. Like picking up a newspaper at local paper boy stand. And as smartphones are getting cheaper by the dozens… errr, I mean by time ~LOL~ even country men/women will eventually use it to warm up the microwave and turn on the air conditioner at home while they’re working on the field.

And I haven’t touch the ‘netbook’ subject in here, maybe we ought to give the newly born category in computing a year or two more years before see again how it make an impact to our digital life.

In the mean time, some of you may laugh at your elders and senior citizens; for never wanting to jump in to the digital life style bandwagon we’re living in. But keep in mind, it might occur someday in the future that it’ll be your turn who’s laughed by your own grandchildren because of your ‘old life style’ according to them…

[blogged with my Treo 750v]