Apart from the coverage and contacts, I came home bubbling with ideas, and critical of the way in which the local print media – which stands up well against its contemporaries in some markets – neglects some content. Take TV listings for example: Is it a task relegated to a junior or production learner, because little thought is often given to content beyond making the section visually attractive.
Listings for regular programmes tend to print what is the same, rather than different about a show (yes, we know the ages-old ‘Hey, Hey…’ format backwards, but who are the guests?) And digital free-to-air programming – suddenly an earner for networks and an enforced reality as the government shuts off analogue broadcasting – is still poorly served.
In Singapore, Morten Rosberg, mobile head of Norway's Verdens Gang (VG) expressed delight that readers would pay for an iPad app which delivered something they could get free… like the TV guide.
Now there’s an opportunity, someone…
Despite the wow technology in use at the local ‘Freie Presse’, you get the impression of travelling through a time-warp. Despite the almost exactly 20 years which has passed since the Wall came down, attitudes – including those to work – do not seem to have changed hugely, to the obvious dismay of those in the former West Germany who are still funding the evolution.
It would be easy to criticise the newspapers of both east and west for their conservatism – ‘Bild’ excepted, of course. But the approach to geographically-zoned editions and local content is something our own metropolitan papers could learn from.
Digital publishing is showing that it can be hyper-local, and GPS-linked mobile technology is already doing a lot better.
But what about the print media? In both the US – with local ‘Wall Street Journal’ editions for New York and Los Angeles – and Australia, where his national broadsheet is pushing further into Perth and Melbourne, Rupert Murdoch continues to show the way. Perhaps Fairfax, which picked up a profitable local publishing model with Rural Press, could take note.
I still recall asking about facilities for microzoning on a visit to the architectural wonder of The Age Print Centre in Melbourne, only to be told, “We’re not that sort of newspaper...” Perhaps they should be.
If I was critical of the efforts presented as 3D printing a couple of issues back, perhaps it was because the content lacked appeal.
Some better samples were to be seen at the PANPA forum in August, and make a more persuasive case. Perhaps because of the humour implicit in some of the illustrations.
That said, there's a danger of getting too excited over what mostly presents as flat cutouts of content, highlighted against an equally flat background… but I’m willing to give it another chance.
It's got little to do with newspapers, but we couldn't help being intrigued by a software development by Advanced Publishing Systems' parent Redgum which is set to take the guessing out of when aged care residents might have an embarrassing moment.
Stage one – which senses and reports a wet nappy – is being followed by predictive software... and more than that would probably be 'too much information'.
We see all sorts of related applications: Predicting a newsroom dummy-spit would give Terry Flynn and his colleagues a way of leveraging the technology.
Ah the wonders of social media. LinkedIn – which seems to have moved to a subscription model – keeps offering me the opportunity to ‘friend’ former Prime UV newspaper systems sales manager David Samide who, sadly, died earlier this year.
Not yet, thanks.
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