E-paper advantages

E-paper can be an interesting option that brings many advantages for newspapers. Print editions have become less popular in recent years, thanks to news channels running 24 hours a day and free online news that can easily be found on many websites. Philip Meyer, author of "The Vanishing Newspaper”, has even made the bold prediction that "the first quarter of 2043 will be the moment when newsprint dies in America" (The Economist).

With less and less readers, it's no suprise that newspapers are losing money on print advertising. How much money did newspapers actually lose? From 2006 to the first quarter of 2009, newspaper ad sales (in America) have dropped by 28.28%, which equals to $2.6 billions (Robin Wauters, 2006).

E-paper can help by attracting a younger audience that might otherwise read the news on the internet (AMEinfo, 2005). E-readers have started to expand and become popular (thanks to e-readers like the amazon kindle. E-readers can bring many advantages that newsprint cannot. Having the daily news downloaded every morning in your amazon kindle is far more convenient than trying to find your printed newspaper outside your house (your newspaper could be missing or stolen). The amount of paper saved from printed newspapers could also become a very popular selling point in trying to sell your electronic newspaper. The price should also drop, with costs decreasing since there would no longer have delivery boys in the morning, huge plants producing the printed newspaper could be closed down and newspaper stands would no longer have a part of the profit if its only selling online (AMEinfo, 2005).

Newspapers aren't alone when it comes to the advantages that e-paper can offer to organizations. Any organizations selling books could also gain from offering e-books on e-readers. Organizations like amazon with its amazon kindle are already selling e-books at a lower price than normal books, they can promote that their organization is more environmentally friendly thanks to e-books that do not need trees being cut down to be produced and smaller book sellers would not be able to compete with the larger organizations that can produce e-readers.

Lastly, organizations that produce advertisements could profit from e-paper, thanks to its unique ability to move images and produce eye catching ads (Epapercentral, 2008). Here is a video showing off what e-paper can do for ads.


Sources:

E-paper and the future of electronic publishing, AMEinfo, March 14th, 2005
http://www.ameinfo.com/55729.html#story

E-paper Advertising: A New Era Has Begun, Epapercentral, October 28th, 2008
http://www.epapercentral.com/e-ink-advertising-a-new-era-has-begun.htm

Wauters, Robin, From Terrible To Terrifying: Newspaper Ad Sales Plummet $2.6 Billion In Q1 2009, Tech Crunch, June 2nd, 2006
http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/02/from-terrible-to-terrifying-newspaper-ad-sales-plummet-26-billion-in-first-quarter/

Who killed the newspaper? The Economist, August 24th, 2006
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7830218