I blogged last week asking whether there was a future for e-papers/e-readers and into my in-box pops an email from the Wall Street Journal announcing new e-reader plans.
The Wall Street Journal Europe has launched an e-Paper service apparently: "the new and fast way of getting The Wall Street Journal Europe".The launch follows comments made by News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch (also last week) who said the content giant was investing in developing an e-reader, like Amazon's Kindle or the Sony Reader.Other newspapers are also looking to go down the e-reader route. Earlier this year e-reader firm Plastic Logic signed agreements with the Financial Times and USA Today to sell and distribute a wealth of content for its forthcoming Plastic Logic Reader.There are others planning e-reader moves as well. Magazine and newspaper publisher Hearst has also said it is planning to develop a Kindle rival.
It appears that newspaper publishers might be leaning towards some kind of e-reader payment system. They appear to be betting that people might make a micro payment for a really good piece of content on a Kindle or other e-reader. Amazon for instance already charges for some news feeds available for free on the web for the Kindle.
Last week, it was the the Gannett owned Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, owned by MediaNews Group, which were pushing their electronic copies after ditching home delivery (on the biggest news day of the year).
The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News papers are also working with Plastic Logic.
A few more interesting bits out of the Newspaper Association of America with stories about how badly
The PaidContent blog has a good piece today on why the idea of charging for content might be a flight
If e-readers are going to be the future for newspapers (as some hope) then there's plenty of work
Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, was sounding pessimistic in Cannes yesterday and warned
Huge sigh of relief has been breathed around the world this morning by newspaper executives everywhere
Gordon Macmillan
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