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www.inma.org ideas March 2010 page 16
Newsmedia companies must act fast to link print with mobile Industry experts offer quick timeline to catch up with mobile opportunities. Will you be ready? by kerry j. northrup
{timeline} Mobile use may surpass internet use by 2013. Check out this timeline to see if your news company will be ready.
It’s not a new idea: that print and mobile are practically made for one another. But with indications that mobile will outstrip all other digital platforms in the next three to five years, it could be a salvation strategy for smart publishers. As long as a decade ago, when I was just starting to build the Newsplex prototype micronewsroom for exploring multi-platform publishing, we were already calling mobile the fourth point of the convergence compass — next to print, online, and video. Now just look at how digital video has exploded since then, a la YouTube, et al. Yet the ascendance of mobile was even easier to see coming. It’s a lifestyle thing. Glancing at one of those management SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analyses makes mobile’s synergies with newspapers and magazines equally obvious. As explained in the Newsplex Convergence Guides published back in 2004: “The mobile phone is developing into an ideal real-time companion to the newspaper. This is because news over mobile — immediate, interactive, multimedia, but limited by bandwidth and screen size — tends to be the exact opposite of news from a newspaper, which is static and seriously time-delayed but relatively expansive in depth and detail. In combination, they seem to cover the spectrum and share a key attribute in the media marketplace: the convenience of portability.” The situation today is the same, but even more so. Print media desperately need mobile’s personal connection with people, and mobile is about to eclipse all prior communication channels. As of last year, more than half the people on the globe have mobile phones, according to the United Nations. A study last December from investment firm Morgan Stanley concluded “the mobile internet is ramping faster than desktop internet did,” and more users will go online via mobile devices than personal computers by 2014. This
January, IT researcher Gartner Inc. moved that date up to 2013. If you are a print publisher and are not already working on a mobile-first strategy as suggested by an increasing array of industry notables, time is running short. Perhaps you should adopt the action plan laid out by Clyde Bentley, 2009-2010 Fellow of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute and an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism (see http://bit.ly/mobtime). That means: >> Appointing mobile editors by next month. >> Getting all reporters equipped and trained on mobile apps and devices by next year. >> Optimising your web sites for mobile visitors and printing mobile-scanned bar codes with stories and ads by middle of 2011. >> And becoming the top mobile news provider in your market by January 2012. Then just hope mobile growth doesn’t accelerate even faster. F
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Kerry J. Northrup, founding director of the Ifra Newsplex and former director of publications for the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-Ifra), is currently the Cal Turner Multimedia Professor and a professional-in-residence at the Western Kentucky University School of Journalism & Broadcasting in Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA. He can be reached at kerry.northrup@wku.edu.