Fidler was a journalist and newspaper designer for 34 years. He served as director of new media for Knight-Ridder in the early 1990s. In 1991, he created the first e-reader prototype while he was a Freedom Forum Media Studies Fellow at Columbia University.
Fidler went on to teach at Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication from 1996-2004.
Read his full bio.
Newspapers cautiously optimistic about e-reader editions in 2010
E-Reader Summit Sept. 14-15, 2009
Roger Fidler, Program Director for Digital Publishing at RJI, at the 2009 E-Reader Summit.
For newspapers, 2010 could be the year of the e-readers.
Nearly all of the top U.S. newspapers are now planning to offer daily editions on a variety of wireless e-readers next year. At least four companies — Sony, iRex Technologies, FirstPaper and PlasticLogic — expect to compete with Amazon’s popular Kindle. All are actively courting newspapers.
To get a collective sense of the newspaper industry’s outlook for e-reader editions and to think broadly about the challenges it faces, representatives from newspaper, e-reader and technology organizations convened at RJI on Sept. 14-15 for an E-Reader Summit hosted by the Digital Publishing Alliance (DPA).
E-Reader Summit 2009 at the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Despite the perceived opportunities and potential cost savings for publishers afforded by e-readers, most of the participants expressed cautious optimism as they addressed business strategies and their concerns about production, marketing, and standards.
“We need to recognize that we’re competing with ourselves,” James Dunn, marketing manager for The New York Times, told the group. At The Times, he said, “we are getting more and more of our income from subscriptions. We don’t want subscribers to switch [from print to electronic delivery] too quickly. We prefer a steady growth path.”
Dunn also warned: “Apple could change the market overnight.”
The rumor that Apple might soon introduce a wireless tablet computer with a full-color touch screen clearly influenced the discussions about business strategies.
Even though David Donovan, vice president for business development at iRex-USA, made a strong case for the value of e-readers as purpose-driven devices, most participants indicated that they were platform agnostic and would take a wait-and-see approach.
The prospect that tablets and netbooks might subordinate e-readers, was just one of the reasons given by the newspaper representatives for not wanting to bundle e-readers with subscriptions. Among the other reasons given were the high costs of purchasing, warehousing and providing customer support for e-readers, and the rapid obsolescence of devices.
Of immediate concern to participants was how newspaper editions would be produced for e-readers. Nearly everyone expressed dissatisfaction with the automated book-like presentation of newspaper editions on the Amazon Kindle.
Josh Cincinnati, manager for business development and emerging media at Washington Post Digital, talks about the limitaions of the Kindle edtions.
Josh Cincinnati, manager for business development and emerging media at Washington Post Digital, was among the participants who said they had problems with the limitations of Kindle editions and the automated production model.
Patricia Kelly, SVP for digital/client solutions with Detroit Media Partnership, was sympathetic to the desire for more newspaper-like presentations on e-readers, but made the point that “we can’t afford custom approaches. We need to have one stream that can serve as many devices as possible.”
Chuck Rose, deputy managing editor for design at USA Today, called attention to the internal cultural struggles and resistance to adding bodies to produce custom e-reader editions. He said when editors ask him “why doesn’t it [the Kindle edition] look more like the printed edition?” he has to tell them he doesn’t have any control over the design. Particularly troubling for USA Today, he added, are the paper’s distinctive “chartacles,” [articles built around charts] which, at least for now, cannot be displayed on e-readers.
Rose also raised the digital rights management issue. He said only about 70 percent of the content published in USA Today’s printed editions can be used in the e-reader editions because of rights restrictions. “We need an automated way to eliminate content that the newspaper doesn’t own,” he suggested.
All of the newspaper representatives indicated that their papers expect initially to outsource the production work, but some had concerns about the amount of work they would be required to do to prepare their content for each e-reader.
Patricia Kelly asked the e-reader representatives: “Will newspapers have to do the heavy lifting or will vendors do the work?”
Dan Treinish, director of content acquisition and business development at FirstPaper, replied that there would be different business models. Some would include incentives for publishers to do the work themselves. He added that it wasn’t just about content management.
Guy Tasaka, director of business development at LibreDigital, volunteered that the business model for e-reader editions would vary based on how much work his company needs to do.
Digital Publishing Alliance members listen to the discussion about the future of E-Readers.
David Donovan encouraged newspapers to own their brand and attach value to their newspaper presentations as he demonstrated iRex’s fourth-generation wireless e-reader — the DR800SR — and the iRex mall were multiple stores could sell products.
(In private, he told the participants who were under NDAs that on Sept. 23 iRex would officially announce that the new device would be sold at Best Buy stores across the U.S., beginning at the end of October and that NewspaperDirect would have a PressDisplay store in the mall where more than 1,000 newspapers could be accessed.)
Donovan also told the group that iRex expects to introduce e-readers with full-color displays in 2011. This was welcome news to the newspaper representatives who said they consider color crucial to attracting advertisers to e-reader editions.
Beth Lawton, manager for digital media at the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), stressed the importance of advertising on e-readers. “Newspapers don’t have an audience problem,” she said. “They have a revenue problem.”
All agreed that e-reader editions are unlikely to succeed without advertising. Lawton indicated that the NAA is looking into e-reader advertising models and would welcome collaboration with the DPA on standards.
At the conclusion of the meeting, participants proposed the following action items for the DPA to pursue:
E-Reader Business Models
- Assess economics for metro and local newspapers
- Identify possible disruptive technologies
- Gather information about best practices
- Develop an optimal business model
- Write 1- or 2-page summary for executives
Technical Analyses and Evaluations of E-Readers
- Build database of all e-reader companies & models
- Use Consumer Reports style for reports
- Assess expectations of readers
Advertising Standards and Requirements for E-Readers
- Gather information from advertisers
- Assess expectations of advertisers
- Make recommendations on ad sizes and formats
Workflow and Processes for E-Reader Editions
- Assess expectations of publishers and editors
- Analyze and diagram optimal workflow
- Develop prototypes
- Make recommendations on fonts
- Provide file-size estimate
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How beneficial is a discussion like this to sit in a room with different people from different industries? |
What can you take back to your organization from what you have learned at this meeting? |
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What role is your organization playing or will play in digital publishing? |
What would be your next step in using what you’ve learned here to take digital publishing to the next level? |
