Ryan Sholin

Note to newspaper companies: Keep your print layout off my screen

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by

Ryan Sholin
in

⚠️ This post is more than five years old. Links may rot, opinions may change, and context might be missing. Proceed with cautious optimism.

Hey guys, let’s make a deal: You stop trying to paste an old media model (print layout) on a new medium (e-paper, UMPC, tabletPC), and I’ll keep reading the stories I want to read, when I want to read them, either via RSS feeds from your paper, or when a blog I trust links to you.

How hard is that to understand?

Don’t get me wrong – I love print layout, and I love paper, but a mobile device is not a piece of paper, and I don’t want it to be.

I spotted this in the press-release-osphere today: NewspaperDirect (the folks behind PressDisplay.com) have cut a deal with Microsoft to zap your favorite newspapers over to your UltraMobilePC (that Origami thing everyone was so excited about awhile back).

Gee, how excited am I to view a broadsheet newspaper layout on a tiny handheld screen? And honestly, even if this ends up being more like the New York Times/Microsoft Vista weird we’ll just make up our own Web standards deal, I’m still not interested.

Stop trying to control my screen, and let me mashup your RSS feeds into my own digital newspaper in peace.

Comments

One response to “Note to newspaper companies: Keep your print layout off my screen”

  1. Erik Avatar
    Erik

    This is why I got rid of the Spartan Daily’s Friday pdf.