Positive: The partnership between an old media company, (NYT) and a new media company (if Microsoft bears that label) is a large step forward. Traditional media, especially newspapers, are struggling and the future looks bleak. New media are cutting seriously into their revenues and it only appears like it will get worse.

But, as we've said before, new media doesn't have much quality content producing capabilities; they need traditional media companies for that content like traditional media companies need new media for their "distribution" methods, which are obviously more efficient than old media business models... at least in the eyes of the people who really count; the audience.  

Negative: To put it bluntly, it's been done and it's not working.

I subscribe to Foreign Policy magazine which comes on Zinio reader. Sure it looks nice, exactly like the print version, ads and all. And it's fairly easy to navigate; there's a button which takes you directly to the table of contents which provides direct links to the articles in the magazine.

But that's just it - in the magazine. There is no interactivity and very few links to outside sources.

Furthermore, the text is too static, it's too small to read on my screen when looking at the whole page and too big when I magnify it which is even worse because I can't scroll down; I have to click to see the full page and then specify again which part I want magnified. I will admit that I thought it was cool that when I clicked on a page the reader makes it look like the page was actually being turned. But the novelty of that wore off the third time I did it.

Images of the Times Reader make it seem like it would be easier to read than Zinio. But the other "innovations" cited are not really innovations at all:

Times Reader will fit itself to the size of the window on your desk top. That's nothing new. Many sites use a format that modifies the text when the user changes the size of the window.

Times Reader will be able to be read when the user is not connected to the Internet on a PC or a Tablet. Great. Webaroo, free downloadable software that does just that, came out a few weeks ago. And even Webaroo might not even be around for very long, seeing as there are predictions that the entire world will soon be wired for WiMax and portable, flexible, Minority Report-style, WiMax enabled, color e-papers could be standard within the next decade.   

So what's really going on here? Dan Gillmor hit it right on the head: the Times is anxious for new revenue streams. 

Newspapers are frantically looking for ways to charge their readers for online content and not much is working. William Dean Singleton, chief of Media News Group Inc. and famous for his penny-pinching approach to newspaper publishing, recently said at the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference that free online content is the biggest threat to the entire industry. The Times' subscription service, at well under 200,000 paying subscribers, seems to have topped off less than a year after it's launch. Even the popular Wall Street Journal Online may have reached its maximum potential.  

There have been suggestions that newspapers begin giving subscribing readers e-paper devices instead of continuing the costly process of printing and shipping the actual paper. The paper's homepage would be the first to pop up on the device.

But this may not even work. Seeing how quickly the price of new technologies drops, e-paper could easily become cheaper than an annual newspaper subscription. Consumers would thus be better off buying the device separately, maintaining their freedom to browse the web. Any paper that had the strategy of handing out the free e-paper to subscribers would automatically be undermined because their content would be behind a paid-wall.

There are other ideas for earning online revenue from consumers but the newspaper industry doesn't yet seem to be taking them seriously. 

All this negative talk goes right back to the positive; newspapers should partner up with new media companies to learn about online money making strategies. With some more experience working together, they should be able to come up with something better than Times Reader.

Sources: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (images), BuzzMachine, Center for Citizen Media, New York Times, Yahoo News (Singleton)

ps. Bill Hill and Michael Cooper, Directors of Advanced Reading Technologies at Microsoft will be at the 13th Editors Forum in Moscow from June 4-7 to answer any questions you may have about e-paper and other reading technologies. Register here!