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It is becoming increasingly clear that a proportion of general news content is going to be put behind some kind of a pay wall in upcoming months. Several publishers have expressed their intentions to start charging, and several third parties want to help them do it. Journalists don't seem to want it, it seems pretty unlikely that readers would want it, so how are publishers going to succeed? Can it restore value to good journalism which is increasingly becoming a commodity? The Editors Weblog takes a look at some of the different services on offer and strategies being considered.

Journalism Online

First, Journalism Online, a start-up founded in April by industry experts Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery, has taken facilitating charging for online content as one of its core goals. Brill made a presentation at the NAA-organised newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28 at which Journalism Online's mission was stated as enabling "news organizations to restore the optimal mix of circulation and advertising revenue necessary to finance original reporting and editing" hence giving them the chance to "realize the revenue they deserve--and can command--from readers and distributors for their digital content."

Journalism Online is marketing its proposal as an e-commerce platform. The idea is that it would make premium content from multiple publishers easily accessible to readers and allow annual, monthly subscriptions, day passes or single articles. There will also be all-you-can-read bundling options. Publishers will decide what content they want to charge for, how much to charge (though it is unclear how all-you-can-read prices will be decided) and how to charge. In the presentation, Brill suggests $50-60 a year and $5-6 a month for small to large city papers, but he stressed that this was an arbitrary choice and clearly the price would depend on how much content the publisher put behind the pay wall. He had previously suggested $15 a month for an all-you-can-read subscription.

The company maintains that implementing its system will not lead to a substantial loss in traffic or ad revenue, claiming that papers would be able to keep 88% of page views and 91% of ad revenue, as any paid content would be part of a hybrid model. In his examples, Brill demonstrates how he believes a paper could essentially double its income. Brill has also stressed that Journalism Online will incorporate lots of sampling. He told Nieman Lab's Zachery Seward that Journalism Online's assumptions are that 5-10% of current monthly unique visitors will be willing to pay for content; that 95 percent of those paying customers will choose subscriptions over micropayments; and that after subscribing, those readers will view 30-40 percent more pages than non-paying readers.

Overall, the company seems to be presenting its service as a chance for newspapers to focus on their best customers, offering a premium service to those who are prepared to pay. At the Chicago meeting, Journalism Online also emphasised the advantages of paid online content in terms of preserving the print product: it is "about the value proposition of print... about print subscriber acquisition and retention costs."

ViewPass

Another third party service was presented at the NAA-organised meeting in Chicago: ViewPass. It is the brainchild of Alan Mutter and Ridgely Evers, and could be implemented in 9 months at a cost of $6 million. The idea is that newspaper readers would be required to register once with ViewPass and it would then track their activity across participating websites.

Like Journalism Online, it would aim to offer readers the chance to purchase premium online content from multiple sources, with potential for subscriptions, micropayments and bundling. Essentially, the ways in which it differs is that ViewPass would be industry-owned, giving publishers the chance to (hopefully) share profits in the business itself, and it most crucially it would allow users to 'pay' for their content with their time or their information instead of with cash, because of their increased value to advertisers. In fact, ViewPass would focus on presenting readers that were attractive to advertisers for highly targeted ads. Mutter himself is not enthusiastic about charging for much online content, suggesting to Nieman Lab that it would only work for specialist content.

Circlabs

The creation of another start up was announced the day before the Chicago meeting: CircLabs, founded by Bill Densmore, Jeffrey Vander Clute, Martin Langeveld and Joe Bergeron. Its first product, code-named Circulate, aims to "offer a solution" to publishers who are experimenting with micropayments and subscriptions, suggesting that they should charge for content which is "both scarce in nature and of high utility to a segment of the audience." CircLabs is also focussed on developing opportunities for "high-value" advertising revenue, and plans to incorporate personalised news services. Further details are yet to appear.

Efforts of individual publishers

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has announced that all the company's newspapers would be charging within a year. It is looking at bundling content, according to chief digital officer Jonathan Miller, such as putting all the media conglomerate's New York-based content into one subscription package. One of the company's prime assets, the Wall Street Journal, is proof that paid premium content does work, although of a specifically financial nature. The paper is to expand its paid online options, with plans to introduce micropayments later this year along with a further level of premium subscriptions. Murdoch suggested that the company wants to "test" a pay model on some of its stronger properties first, and there has been speculation that the Sunday Times will be among these. The paid online content debate, although definitely present in the UK, has not been as strong as across the Atlantic, and it would be interesting to see what sort of reaction such a move would provoke.

MediaNews Group is planning to charge online under the belief that "we continue to do an injustice to our print subscribers and create perceptions that our content has no value by putting all of our print content online for free." A memo to staff from CEO Dean Singleton and president Jody Lodovic suggested that a part-paid strategy is in the works, and made it clear that the company is intending to charge for existing content rather than for new products or services.

The New York Times is apparently looking at two different ways in which it could charge for online content. The first would be somewhat similar to the Financial Times' model, whereby readers could surf the site without charge until a page-view or word limit were reached, when a 'metre' would start running and it would charge a user for the rest of their time spent. (The FT allows 10 free articles per user per month, then demands a subscription.) This would have the advantage of not putting specific content behind a paywall, and therefore not angering journalists.

The other option is a 'membership' scheme: readers would donate money and subsequently be invited into a "New York Times community," which would offer them free merchandise and other benefits. Possibly a tiered membership scheme could be implemented. When these proposals were discussed, Bill Keller told staff that a decision would be made by the end of June. The NYT is wary following its failed TimesSelect experience back in 2007 and seems determined to find a solution that will not damage its significant ad revenue.

Potential obstacles: search and antitrust

Currently many people find their news through search engines such as Google, and for articles to get good Google rankings and appear higher up in search results, they cannot be behind a paywall. Newspapers must strive to find an appropriate solution to this when they start charging: the Wall Street Journal's tactic of allowing its paid content to be accessed free via Google is clearly not fair to its paying customers, and is a definite deterrent to potential subscribers.

Antitrust regulations in the US effectively prevent publishers from coming to a joint agreement on when and how they should start charging for content. At the newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28, an antitrust lawyer was present to make sure all the discussion was legal. Poynter analyst Rick Edmonds suggested that the use of a third party "vendor" such as Journalism Online could be the solution to these concerns. Journalism Online has taken on David Boies and Ted Olson for antitrust advice.

So, is it going to work? And how?

Undoubtedly, implementing paid content is going to be a considerable challenge and is likely to involve substantial experimentation. Newspapers need to consider what exactly they would want to charge for, for example whether they could create a new paid service or put what is currently free behind a pay wall. It seems as if it would be easier to persuade people to pay for something new, rather than telling them they have to start paying for something previously free. But then people might decide that they are happy with what they get now and that they do not want to pay for anything extra. A paper with a highly developed website such as the New York Times could possibly offer basic news free but keep its interactive graphics and other more innovative content for its premium customers.

As yet, Journalism Online seems to be ahead of the pack with regards to third party services. No papers have publicly signed on but Brill told Seward that he had already spoken to about half of those at the Chicago meeting. In terms of connections and credibility of its founders, Journalism Online has a head start. ViewPass and CircLabs do seem to be onto something, however, with their focus on offering consumers as targets for higher-revenue advertising and effectively allowing them to pay for their news by looking at ads. Could these companies coexist, or is there only room for one?

A crucial factor which should not be underestimated in any attempt to charge online is ease of use for the consumer. People will be far more likely to part with their cash if doing so is simple and straightforward. For this reason, sign-in-once and all-you-can-read offers are likely to appeal. And once people are paying, the level of service should reflect this: good journalism presented attractively and accessibly. An element of personalisation would also seem worth paying for.

Can paid online content 'save' newspapers? If Journalism Online's figures are correct, it looks like it could make a significant difference to a newspaper's fortunes. The next few months will be telling in terms of experimentation and competition between proposals, but it will take some years for the definitive answer to this question to be realised.

Alan Mutter has confirmed that he was one of three people who made a presentation at the 'secret' newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago last week. The product he was discussing, which he has developed in conjunction with tech entrepreneur Ridgely Evers is ViewPass: a single, industry-owned brand that would enable consumers to access paid content on websites and mobile platforms from all participating publishers.

Mutter compared ViewPass to a Visa card, and clarified that it would consist of a "simple, one-time registration system that would remember users as they moved among participating websites." It would support micropayments, subscriptions and bundles of content, similar to Journalism Online. "To address the concern that many consumers may rebel against pay walls," reads the document given to publishers at the meeting, obtained by NiemanLab, ViewPass also gives publishers the option of letting users "pay" for content with time or information rather than just cash.

Last Monday, a little over halfway into the 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival, The American Pavilion hosted a panel discussion entitled "It's a Mad, New Media World." The six panelists in attendance were John Horn of The Los Angeles Times, James Rocchi of MSN Movies, Anne Thompson of ThompsonOnHollywood, Karina Longworth of SpoutBlog, and Sharon Waxman of The Wrap. Eugene Hernandez from IndieWIRE acted as the mediator.
 
The subject under discussion was the state of new media and its consequences for print media. Horn from the LA Times boldly asserts his opinion that trade magazines will solely and can only exist online by the end of this year. He sounds astonished when pondering how trade magazines can stay afloat as a print platform. Hernandez declared Horn to be the most powerful journalist on the panel. Hernandez credits Horn with this distinction thanks to the idea that newspapers like the LA Times, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal represent a brand.

Google News announced that it has struck a deal with eight European news agencies to host their content and to display advertisements around their stories. The ads will also run alongside content from the agencies whose content Google already hosts: AP, the AFP, the UK Press Association and Canada Press. Google started to display ads next to search results on Google News US in late February, but it was unclear if the move would spread to outside the US. The ads will be contextually relevant, as they are on Google news US.

News agencies EFE, which services Spain and Latin America, LUSA (Portugal and Brazil), Keystone (Switzerland), APA (Austria), PAP (Poland), MTI (Hungary), ANA (Greece) and Belga (Belgium) have all struck news content hosting deals with Google. They are all members of the European Press agency.

E-readers have been on the market for some years now, but only very recently has it seemed even mildly likely that the idea might take off and they would become a widely used product. Currently e-Readers are still far from having must-have status. But with Amazon's much anticipated launch of Kindle 2.0, Plastic Logic's announcements of media partners for its upcoming product, and Hearst's recent news that it will also produce an electronic reader, it seems that the supply at least is ready, in case the demand does appear. E-readers could have far-reaching consequences for newspapers if they do increase in popularity, as publishers can bring in significant income from wirelessly delivering digital editions of their papers to users. The Editors Weblog spoke to Plastic Logic Vice President of Business Development Daren Benzi, about the company's business-orientated e-reader and its potential impact on newspapers.

Big screen news

Plastic Logic is planning to release its, as yet un-named, reader in January 2010. The main difference between it and the Kindle, or Sony's somewhat unoriginally titled Reader, is that the Plastic Logic product will have a considerably larger display and will be marketed towards the 'mobile business professional,' rather than the leisure reader, clarified Benzi. The screen will measure 10.7 inches diagonally (about 27cm) compared to Kindle's 6 inch/15cm display. Despite its larger size, the device will weigh about the same as the Kindle, as it will be made from plastic rather than glass and silicon. This also gives it the advantage of being more robust and durable, explained Benzi. The screen itself is flexible, but the rest of the components are not as the technology is not quite ready, and Benzi added that consumer testing has shown that people "would like it to have some form to make it easier to carry." The device is extremely easy to use, Benzi added, with an "intuitive touch screen" and just one button to power the display.

An important development compared to other e-readers, Benzi remarked, is that rather than just passing through text, Plastic Logic is "trying to deliver a deeper, richer reading experience," meaning that more information would be placed on the device. Some modifications will still have to be made to put a newspaper on such a product, but Benzi explained that there are companies which can do that for them. It will also be much easier to transfer documents such as word or pdf files from a computer to the e-reader, via a USB port. Although the product is focused on the needs of a business person, that does not mean that books will not be available also: "I don't want to discount the fact that the business professional enjoys leisure reading," Benzi added.

Partnerships with newspapers

Benzi was clear that one of Plastic Logic's key aims is to provide newspaper content on its e-reader. "Because of the size of our device, newspapers and magazines really are our core focus," he stressed, "right away a newspaper company sees the greater opportunity to publish on an end user product that is much closer to the print version." Content will be available through a shop, similar to Kindle's. The first product will be in grey scale but Benzi described the company's commitment to producing a colour device in the near future as a reason why papers with strong colour branding, such as the Financial Times and USA Today, are so keen to collaborate. Plastic Logic recently signed deals with these two publications, and Benzi was confident that the company will be announcing "lots more direct relationships as we approach the launch." Other partners include Libre Digital, which manages several digital newspaper titles and Zinio, which produces digital magazines.  

This attempt to "pass through the print like experience" extends to advertising, which Benzi said had "often been left behind in these device segments." It is however crucial for newspapers as a revenue stream in addition to income from subscriptions.  Benzi explained that although the first device will not access the internet, consumers might well be able to click on an advertisement for additional information on products or offers:"we could put a catalogue on the device if we wanted to, there is plenty of information that users can have at their finger tips."  Plastic Logic will be able to "track the information about what the customer is doing with the device," a system which would seem to offer benefits to both newspapers and advertisers.

"Customers have shown in the past that they are prepared to pay for news, and they will again in the future: you just have to give them the right experience."

Benzi emphasised that although he could not claim that e-readers would be the newspaper industry's saviour, he believed that partnerships with Plastic Logic could be "a greatly valuable asset to newspapers' overall mix of business models." He added that "the great advantage with us is that there is no paper or ink involved, and no moving things around with trucks," which significantly reduces the cost of delivering content. He explained that his conversations with newspapers have focussed on how they can work together "drive new revenue and hopefully reach new customers for our partners." With regards to charging for content that might be available free on the web, Benzi is convinced that it is not necessary to "devalue content" and that "customers have shown in the past that they are prepared to pay for it, and they will again in the future: you just have to give them the right experience." Pricing for the device or for subscriptions have not yet been finalised, but Benzi confirmed that prices would be competitive. He accepts that there are some savings when producing a digital product which should be passed on to the customer, and that will be taken into account when comparing the pricing with a print subscription.

The market case for e-Readers

Benzi was confident that the time is right for e-readers. "I think that the factors and trends are much more aligned now than five years ago," he explained. This is partly because of technological advances, meaning that the devices can be smaller, lighter and easier to use, and also because of the way mindsets have changed, meaning that "people are a lot more comfortable reading digital content, and are more conscious of the benefits of getting their information this way." Another huge advantage of digital paper, and one that has maybe not been giving the attention it deserves, is that it is more environmentally friendly, an issue will presumably only become more important, and should appeal to many consumers.

Benzi believes the time is right for e-readers: "the factors and trends are much more aligned now than five years ago"

Most of Plastic Logic's target market, the mobile business professional, are very likely to possess a lap top computer and a smart phone, so why do they need a third device, and would they agree to use one? Benzi insisted that there is room for such a product, as it would replace the need to carry around not just newspapers and magazines, but other documents also. Compared with a computer, one of the advantages of the device is that readers can focus entirely on consuming content, they will not be disturbed by emails, for example. It is also far easier to use, and there is no glare, "it feels like you're reading on paper." Lastly, it has much longer battery life than a computer or a smart phone.

It would appear that the most fierce competition for e-readers comes from smart phones, for which many different newspapers have created applications that allow consumers to access their content. However, Benzi was insistent that he did not view smart phones as competitors. He explained that he realises that they are an alternative partner for newspapers, but "for what we are trying to accomplish, their screens are too small." Reading the news on a smart phone is fine if you are just after the bare information, he commented, but Plastic Logic is aiming to deliver "a totally different kind of reading experience," one which is far more similar to print.

Smart phones are not competition: "for what we are trying to accomplish, their screens are too small."

Amazon's Kindle 2 has been met with mixed reviews, largely because it is not seen as being different enough to the first model; not least because the company has not given any indication that the product will be available outside the US. Its text-to-speech function recently suffered setbacks after protests from publishers: now publishers will decide whether to allow their books to be read by the device. Amazon has refused to release sales figures for either versions of Kindle, suggesting that numbers might not be what Amazon had been hoping for. At $359, it is not cheap.

Will the Plastic Logic device be better received? Its larger screen will undoubtedly be more suited to reading newspapers and documents, and the business market may well be more receptive to such a product. It must expect some competition from Hearst, which just announced that it is to release a large-format wireless e-reader this year, "suited to the reading and advertising requirements of newspapers and magazines," according to Fortune. It seems that the newspapers are indeed enthusiastic, but are the customers? Or will it take something more to persuade them to give up their attachment to paper, and possibly greatly reduced prices for the basic device?

The question of paid online content is very much on the newspaper industry's lips at the moment. Though as many newspapers have already tried and failed with online subscription models, alternative solutions such as micropayment or cable TV style packages have been proposed. Bill Densmore, former publisher, journalist and director/editor of the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, with the help of an $80,000 fellowship from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, is working on a possible scheme which would accommodate both these concepts. His initiative, the Information Valet Project, is an "effort to rally U.S. news and information-industry publishers to participate in a shared-user network for Internet demographic-privacy management, enhanced advertising services and subscription/per click content options." The Editors Weblog spoke to Densmore to find out more about his far-reaching and complex idea.

Not your average online payment scheme

The Information Valet project proposes that all information providers, such as newspaper websites, join together to be part of the same shared user network. A user would have an account with one paper, which would be their 'information valet,' and he or she would use this account to access other sites around the network. Depending on how much information about themselves the user agrees to provide, both the content and advertising on websites in the network would be customised to a certain degree for the individual user, based on demographic data or a user's past preferences. For those users who provide some information about themselves, relevant advertising would be shown, and users would theoretically have their account credited for looking at such ads, in a system similar to that proposed in late January by the Nieman Journalism Lab. .

In practice, Densmore envisages users paying their information valet a set fee per month to have access to a bundle of content from multiple websites, and the advertising revenue would be absorbed by the valet. It would probably be possible, however, to buy some information "a la carte." Any account with an 'information valet' would be portable, so users could move their account to a different provider if they chose, and providers would offer competitive proposals.

Densmore outlined details of the type of non-profit organisation he believes should run the network. "We are exploring the idea of calling it the Journalism Trust Association," and its broad social aim would be to sustain journalism. It would probably own a for-profit association that would actually run the network: it would manage the log in of consumers across the user network, and would "have a facility to make it easy to pay you as a consumer when you look at sponsored information, and charge you for information that you receive as part of a subscription bundle."

The ins and outs for readers, newspapers and advertisers

Consumer
So for the consumer, it would mean that "rather than having breadcrumbs of your persona spread all over the internet with multiple logins and passwords, you can have a relationship with your most trusted information valet."

• Readers agree with this valet on what details they are going to provide about themselves and their preferences, and what packages of information or other services they would like.
  
• Densmore explained that it would thus give the user more control over their privacy as they would know who sees what information about them and they would have the option to block certain websites from seeing their details. And if they wanted, they could choose a 'Swiss bank' style service, where they would not need to provide any details.

Newspaper
For the information provider, the network would allow them to "forge a new kind of trust relationship with the consumer where you are helping them find and have access to the information that they need to get their jobs done in their daily lives." And crucially, it would allow them to receive income from readers as well as from advertisers.

Advertiser
And finally for the advertiser, it means the ability to approach specific people with advertising that is very relevant for them, rather than potentially wasting money on a mass market.

• Advertisers would be marketing to "individual users who are both anonymous yet identified."
  
• Densmore stressed that users will not exclusively see advertisements that correspond to what they have told the system they would like, as often people will find that they are in fact interested in a product that they did not expect to be interested in. 
• Existing advertiser-information provider relationships would be able to continue.

Will it work?

The Information Valet project has already been developed in some detail, and Densmore is working with US newspaper chain Lee Enterprises which has agreed that one of its newspaper sites will demonstrate the 'notion' of the network in April in at a press conference in Washington DC. The Associated Press has agreed to provide Densmore and his team with access to its AP exchange database, which is a very detailed tagging system for content.
 
So the project is well on its way, and Densmore explained that technologically, there should be no difficulty in establishing such a network. However, to be effective, the network has to be virtually all encompassing, so the challenge is "simultaneously convincing a large number of content providers, advertisers and users that this network is valuable and that they should be a part of it." Densmore believes that creating a trusted organisation to manage the network is essential, as is making the network an attractive proposition for the consumer, which would also make it more appealing to the content providers. Densmore hopes that newspapers and other information providers "will ultimately realise that the challenge of having all these essentially incompatible protocols, like railroads with different gage tracks, is not a useful paradigm for them or for consumers," and will all join in.

To charge or not to charge for content

The big question for the media industry is, and the one that would undoubtedly be a crucial factor in its chances for success: could it save newspapers? The complexity of the system, and of the concept itself, appears likely to be one of its first stumbling blocks. People will not be persuaded to use a system that they do not understand. But, if Densmore and his team can take these complicated blueprints and hide them behind an easy-to-use consumer product/interface, they may just be able to pull it off. Whether it will make enough money to support newspapers is another question. As Densmore explained, it is extremely hard at the moment to tell when the idea has not been thoroughly tested.

Considering the current debate on paid content, Densmore's proposal is particularly relevant. Under his scheme, it seems that users would pay for their news, but content would be 'bundled,' meaning no individual subscriptions. Media commentators are fiercely divided between those who insist that paid online news is the only way, and the right way, to succeed, and those who assert that consumers will never pay, and that charging for content is an old fashioned idea that newspapers are returning to to make up for a lack of new entrepreneurship.

The question, as Observer writer Peter Preston put it, is "can content be put back on its pedestal again? Can original investment bring a reward?" He concludes, as the Editors Weblog has, that there is not much that individual content providers can do on their own: "only working together will work." Gordon Crovitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal, one of the few papers which successfully charges for online content, that "people are happy to pay for news and information however it's delivered, but only if it has real, differentiated value." He believes that the question is not "will people pay to access my newspaper content on the Web?" but rather, "what kind of journalism can my staff produce that is different and valuable enough that people will pay for it online?" The Real Clear Politics blog calls for a US industry-wide adoption of a pay wall, managed by the Newspaper Association of America.

Lauren Rich Fine, on the other hand, (writing somewhat ironically in Paid Content) is like many others convinced that paid online content is not the solution, and suggests instead that newspapers try to become the "local ad network that is so sorely missing from the mix," and "prove they are the best editors by pouring all their limited resources into great local stories and investigations, while complementing it with links to the best content on the web." She admits, though, that this will not restore newspapers to what they were financially, and indeed, as yet, the non-profit model or community ownership aside, other feasible alternative money-making schemes have been lacking.

So it would seem that there might be room for a project such as the Information Valet, as newspapers are in dire need of more income. The scheme would involve industry-wide collaboration, which appears to be essential if people are to be persuaded to pay, and the bundling idea would to an extent respect the openness of the Internet. More transparency with regards to the use of consumers' information is also likely to be greatly appreciated, in a time when this issue is also under scrutiny for companies such as Facebook. But Densmore and his team will have to prove that it will be simple enough for the consumer to grasp, and most importantly, that it will generate a significant amount of revenue for newspapers.
 

In the run-up to the 16th World Editors Forum being held in Hyderabad, India March 22-25, 2009, the Editors Weblog is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. This week, we looked Global Post and Huffington Post, two news websites that are challenging the traditional newspaper business model. Below, editors from around the world share their own thoughts about ONLINE-ONLY NEWS PUBLICATIONS.

AFRICA
Azubuike Ishiekwene, Executive Director, Punch Nigeria
A Nigerian site equivalent to the Huffington Post named Saharareporters.com is a competitor of Punch, but we don't consider it a threat. However, the site has helped to keep us on our toes. We believe that print will remain an indispensable medium for the validation of meaning among readers. We have nearly 36 years of credibility which must count for something. My colleagues in the newsroom agree that competition from online can only make us stronger and is unlikely to supplant our relevance as long as we're listening to the readers.

LATIN AMERICA
Marcelo Rech, General Product Director, RBS Group, Brasil
By now, newspaper people should always have in their head that they and their newspapers are competing with every kind of consumer distraction, from YouTube to Twitter.

That's why we have to work harder and harder to promote the newspaper to the public and advertisers, especially the basic idea behind the newspaper; to be THE place for news (local, political, national, general, etc., depending on the strategy of your paper), and be far better than your competitor. This is not a new story; it is the same concern of our ancestors 150 years ago.

EASTERN EUROPE
Roman Gallo, Director of Media Strategies, PPF Financial Group
Online-only news sites are not a threat to traditional news gatherers. These project are only threats for media companies that do not understand changing media landscape, that do not understand that publishing on only one channel, one platform media (only print, only TV...) is not a future. One platform media will be able to survive only if they are strictly targeted and focused at a very clear (and I would guess a very limited) audience. In the case of my former publishing house, we are partially in competition with these sites because we run a fully-integrated and clearly targeted multimedia system. .

WESTERN EUROPE
Espen Egil Hansen, Editor-in Chief, Verdens Gang Multimedia, Norway
Several of the stand alone online news sites are really good, they are often better than us to utilize the possibilities of internet, and they force us to improve our own products. Nonetheless, I believe these are not our most important competitors.

The key now is to understand that the technological development gives traditional media a competition from a range of players we don't necessarily define as "media". There are three factors demanding that we analyze the competition with fresh eyes:

THE USER'S TIME: The time spent on popular sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Nettby.no and so on is dramatically longer than on news sites. This trend is reinforced by new mobile platforms like iPhone. Look around you: On the metro, in the cafeteria, at the breakfast table -in all the situations where people traditionally have been enjoying a newspaper, more and more people are now staring into some sort of screen. This represents a dramatic competitive shift because these services steal time from that which used to be allocated to newspapers and news sites.

NICHE SITES and SOCIAL NETWORK: Within any thinkable niche there exist special interest sites and services with more depth, higher quality and that are perceived as more effective than newspapers and news sites. Although many of these are not in the news business in a traditional sense, they are still our competitors because they so strongly affect the way in which we gather information in our daily life.

ADVERTISING: We are in direct competition with Google when it comes to the big advertising money. In addition, we see that the classified ads, that have been a great source of income for many, are now moving to sites not attached to traditional media houses in any way. In my mind, the most important question for 2009 is this: What will fund the journalism in the future?

Altogether, these three factors represent competitive challenges that must have consequences for all parts of our operation. Rather than pointing out the stand alone news sites as our new competitors, we need to search deeper and ask ourselves: "With this new media reality - what should we be in the future?"

NORTH AMERICA
Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail, Canada
We don't see these sorts of sites as a threat per se to traditional news gathering. But we do see them as competitive. They are in the business of aggregating niche audiences around a public debate of the issues of the day. Anyone who aggregates audience obviously is a competitor, but can be seen as a partner, too.

First off, our unique proposition lies In our ability to generate the news,  often news that would not exist without our journalistic efforts, that feeds the fires of public debate. Of course, newspaper companies have long been in the commentary and opinion part of the business, too, and need to remain so.

But unlike with print, where the barriers to entry are so high, we have no option to live with many more alternatives in the digital world. So we have to consider whether we are primarily distributors or creators, along with our audiences (or communities) of content.
While I suspect we will continue to distribute through our own channels, I see no reason why we won't seek to maximize our reach by aligning our branded content through other distribution channels, such as Politico. Communities are being formed all over the place. We need to get out of the old mindset that they will come to us and go out, introduce ourselves and overwhelm them with the quality of our insights in their areas of interest.

Terry Eberle, Executive Editor and Vice President, Fort Myers News Press, Florida
Local information is what we are about. No one can compete with us for information in Southwest Florida. We must keep that in mind as we do our online work and plan our online and print newspapers. How can we make that national story local? How do we bring a national story home to our readers. On Jan. 20, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. The world and national press will be all over that story. But, we will be on a bus traveling from Fort Myers, FL filled with people going to see this historic day. We will be on this bus, we will be doing live video on this bus. In other words, we won't be spending our time just rewriting the main story that we will receive from dozens of other places. We will spend our time reporting on this historic event through the eyes of local people.

Times Record News of Wichita Falls, Texas launched an e-edition of its newspaper, designed to be "the printed version of the paper showcased in an electronic format," according to the paper's website.

The paper stated that the e-edition will be very different than the web site.  It will serve as "an answer to the increasing attraction to the Internet, in that the e-edition has navigability, giving you the ability to explore the daily paper as it is laid out, piece by piece, story by story, ad by ad. It's all there."

With the evidence growing that readers want customisation instead of pre-packaged portfolios, the newspaper sector is challenged to develop alternative publishing formats (see Part 1 and Part 2 of our eReader series). A recent McKinsey survey (August 2007 newsletter) revealed the growing habit of 'brand promiscuity', with consumers using up to 16 different news sources weekly. Moreover, readers classified internet as much more useful compared to established media such as print. Modern news junkies go for convenience, comprehensiveness and timeliness rather than the traditional quality standards.

Is the print industry taking up the challenge? Not really. When it comes to using the Net, many newspapers feel more comfortable with direct transfer of existing copy onto the new medium. Companies like NewspaperDirect make a business out it; from next year on this company will start its PressDisplay news portal for delivery of associated papers on e-readers, tapping directly into the pre-print workflow and keeping the trusted appearance.

Not surprisingly, the innovative formats come from media outsiders. These startups have one thing in common, they believe in the electronic newspaper as a composite product, made up of a variety of professional and non-professional sources, tailored to the requirements and profiles of the individual news consumer. The New York-based start-up Daylife, which experiments with new editorial and financial models for online news, offers a mix of traditional and innovative formats for news distribution. A range of reputed titles is already using this platform for additional content delivery, but the site itself features an attractive and constantly updated news overview, produced by an amalgamation of contributors. Already closer to the network-driven medium of the future is FeedJournal, an RSS syndicating newspaper producing a digital daily building on defined user preferences. A comparable initiative, but now based on profile-steered net-crawling, is Newser. This service delivers summaries of hot news from across the globe and links to the original stories. The Radus New Media Platform follows the same philosophy, be it that additionally social networking sites are integrated: Personal highlights blend in with world events.

The aggregation game is on - so much is clear. But these applications don't change the content itself. Ultimately, the very nature of news needs to be reexamined and adjusted to the principles of digital delivery. Research at the Poynter Institute pointed out that alternative story forms are more effective than classical narrative, especially in an electronic information context. An equally interesting study was conducted by Associated Press. AP worked out 'A New Model for News' after observing the reading habits of a group of young-adults, the generation that has meanwhile grown up with or migrated to the Net. The study demonstrated that consumers are accessing the news from a range of different entry points, as much by chance as by design. The need for multiple entry points challenges the conventional container approach and article architecture. The AP model moves news into a new space - a universe of stories made up from different spheres, each ranging in size and scope (facts, updates, back stories, spin offs) - and readers interacting with story particles from different entry points and platforms. What these 'spheres' exactly should look like needs to worked out in practice.

One project exploring the journalistic formats for multi-entry news is the Dutch MePaper project. In a design studio jointly manned by journalists and researchers, key concepts are being developed and tested with proofreader panels. The project uses the term 'collection' to describe the journalistic raw material of the digital era, a loosely defined and ever changing combination of story elements. Quite a contrast with the well-defined nature of the standard article. News collections can be combined into news clouds, according to readers' general preferences and actual reading habits. This leads to four types of newspapers based on:
1. the editor's choice
2. the personal profile
3. the reading pattern of the preferred social network
4. the most read stories at a given time.
While reading, you can switch from one type of newspaper to another. The traditional line up of story titles is replaced by revolving cylinders in which stories, pictures and video are grouped according to theme or genre. In the test groups, the net-native proof readers almost intuitively roamed the presented information space.

Clearly there will be more solutions and design principles popping up. The main thing is that newspaper publishers stop with the easy repackaging and start digging for authentic formats which fully exploit the vast opportunities of electronic news delivery. Things can only get better, eh?

Director of the Euorpean Centre for Digital Communications and long-time journalist, Jan Bierhoff is currently conducting studies on e-reader technology and the consumer trends that will define their use.

As outlined in the first entry of this series, consumers will start using mobile electronic reading devices routinely. But will these versatile tools also become the preferred display for news and current affairs? Publishers' ability to inhabit this uncharted territory will matter greatly, but even more important is the decision of media consumers that news offered in this way best fits today's lifestyle and nicely blends in with their expectations and routines.
 
The readers' view is currently being explored and tested in several prototyping and/or pilot initiatives, although this effort is modest compared to the involvement of hardware and software engineers. Nevertheless, first results reveal the contours of what in the eyes of the digital reader will be the ideal form of electronic information delivery. Based on four recent research actions, this contribution will sketch the preconditions for successful deployment of e-readers and services, seen from the users perspective.

The eNews project, set up by Ifra, explored the consumer readiness for e-readers. Via focus groups in European and Japanese locations it was found that the use setting is different: more lean backward compared to the lean forward use of PC and print. This finding will have consequences for the kind of content that can be offered. Surprisingly, the consulted test persons appreciated the daylight readability of the e-readers, but by no means hyped it as heavily as the manufacturers themselves always do. The love for the device stems much more from its environment-friendly image.

Microsoft, partner in the design of the New York Times News Reader, has evaluated the user appreciation of this application in a field study. A selected group of readers worked for weeks with the NYTReader, especially while commuting, and was interviewed afterwards. Overall assessment was very positive: two-thirds, especially the serious travellers, would stick to the service. The kind of use however depended much on personal reading style: the news junkies appreciated the amount of detail, the skimmers the quickness of updates while the fun-seekers enjoyed the sophisticated layout. The synchronisation feature for permanent updating was less popular: too time-consuming and difficult to understand.
Conclusion: newspapers will have to bear in mind all these different use categories, and with an improved product.

In the Dutch MePaper project, the five participating newspapers are exploring novel journalistic formats for two types of e-readers: the e-ink devices and the mini laptops (UMPCs). New content models for mobile reading are developed in a joint design studio and these prototypes are tested in lab-based proof reading sessions. Here, it shows that there is a difference between what journalists think is important, for instance the addition of time frames to story overviews, and what the public wants (don't bother us with release hours). Also in this R&D effort, the variety of user demands is apparent. Many want both local (often hyper local) news, without loosing the global perspective. The preference can change from day to day, depending on personal circumstances and the attraction of news on offer. A definite outcome is the demand for customisation of the e-paper, ideally composed of sections, even editors from a range of different media. This result is in fact a cry-out for joint ventures between titles and across newspaper groups. Thus, e-reading will provoke unconventional business practices.
If the newspaper world manages to respond to these user requirements, there certainly is scope for a quick roll-out of the e-reading technology. In a Swedish large scale online survey (part of the UbiMedia project), 42 percent of the 3600 readers indicated to be ready for it now, and another 19 percent in the next five years.  Would these people want to change their trusted print edition for an electronic version? Two-thirds said yes, only one-third would be faithful to newsprint. The e-service however is expected to be considerably cheaper (says 58 percent), with a meagre 8 percent willing to pay extra for premium content.

The conclusion is obvious, the adoption potential for mobile electronic reading is certainly high, but it is a medium in its own right, not just another print or online edition spin-off. It needs to be well designed, fully user-driven, with convincing personalisation options. Valuable lessons in this respect are being learned by a Dutch paper, NRC. The e-reader service it launched last year based itself on simple copy streaming, and it obviously doesn't work. Disappointed users created an open forum in wiki format to voice their concerns, criticism and improvement suggestions. The company hasn't been able to respond to it adequately yet. E-reading clearly asks for special content formats, a different type of navigation architecture and innovative forms of news organisation. In the next entry, first design principles will be reviewed.

Director of the Euorpean Centre for Digital Communications and long-time journalist, Jan Bierhoff is currently conducting studies on e-reader technology and the consumer trends that will define their use. 
 

The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) released a study showing that Europeans are increasingly turning to the Internet.  Usage is increasing both for leisure pursuits and a means to manage their daily lifestyles.

55% of the 178 million European Internet users go online everyday and 51% go online on the weekends.  In addition, it is the 25-34 year -olds that are driving recent growth.  The study also highlights the top ten activities people do online; here are the top five:

Unlike those he decries as "misguided cynics," global media mogul Rupert Murdoch believes that newspapers will reach "new heights" in the 21st century.

Although the print newspaper is going to face changes, "it will always be around," Murdoch said, in one version or another.

Barely a day goes by at the moment without a raft of stories on the financial crisis, the US election and... the Associated Press. The Associated Press's communications team have never been so in demand, and the venerated news agency is moving dangerously close to becoming the story rather than being the one that writes about it.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Tom Brettingen, Chief Revenue Officer and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at the AP, to discuss bad publicity, editorial content, price structure, and editorial cuts at the agency.

EW: Have you been surprised at the reaction to the price structure changes?

TB: "Generally, and for most of the industry, what we were offering was much more content for less money and a broader license to use it. We expected people to be happy, and most people were happy, the people you are seeing in the news were people, as the economic situation got worse, who were expecting larger decreases in their rates."

EW: Why were these changes necessary?

TB: "In the beginning, the goal was not drastic rate cuts, it was more about content. We wanted to help newspapers find the content that was specifically right for them in their markets and keep rates flat in doing that. We did all the work to devise the specifics and as these discussions went on the situation in the market became a lot worse and the global economy got worse. So, now the pricing and packaging that we started off with has run into this buzz of newspaper challenges and general economic challenges and that's why you find today all the stuff in the news about us"

EW: Is the AP having the same financial difficulties as the rest of the industry?

TB: "If our customers, who are generally ad supported, are hurt by the challenges that all newspapers are facing, compounded by the global economy, then of course it affects us as well"

EW: Looking back, would you have done anything differently with regard implementing the price structure changes? Do you think communication was an issue?

TB: "Some of the clients found the new packaging unnecessarily complicated. We created one level that contained all of the Breaking News, and then separate to this we had additional levels, Premium vertical segments, such as Sports, Business, Lifestyle, Entertainment and Analysis. Our thinking was "Breaking News" would satisfy a lot of customers, but some of our clients with more specialized newspapers might want to buy additional sports and business. Breaking News did have a huge amount of sports and business, but some of it was separated into Premium categories, so only those newspapers that wanted it needed to buy it."

"If we had foreseen how much more difficult the economic situation was going to get, we probably would have jumped ahead farther and skipped some of the intermediate steps. Things were not great 2 years ago, but they weren't nearly as bad as they are now.

"I am sure that (sic: communication) was part of it.... We were making this brand new separation from Breaking News, which on its face seems straightforward enough. However, say you are looking at Sports; you get the baseball results and match report, but what about analysis and sidebars? We had that planned, but we didn't have it live in the new web platform, so newspapers hearing from us couldn't go immediately to the website and see what we were talking about."

"If we'd had more time to announce it so that we could have finished the programming so that the distinctions between Breaking News and Premium would be clearer.... yeah, we could have timed that better. We were racing to get the program built and explained so people could make their choices in time for 2009. Newspapers didn't have the ability to see the differences to Breaking and Premium, and that would be something we could have done better.

"There was a huge amount of communication, it just wasn't necessarily what everyone wanted to hear"

EW: What was AP's reaction to the business-wide and economic crisis?

TB: "Last week, as the economic situation worsened and newspapers wanted a further reduction in their pricings from us, we did two things, for the small percentages of newspapers that saw a price increase in 2009, that was called off, and then we decided to abandon the two tier model. We made it part of one package, so premium is available to everyone."

EW: What is in the future for the AP?

TB: "We are undertaking a major review of what we need to do beyond changes in 2009. That will be a wide-ranging review. There are some benefits to membership of the AP, you vote for the board, you have an ownership stake; however, maybe some newspapers would prefer to not support the co-op to that level. Maybe some newspapers would prefer to be a more straightforward customer and buy a small content package for less money. That will be something that we will be examining."

EW: Do you expect to increase prices after 2009 for US newspapers?

TB: "Unless something miraculous happens and turns things around, if newspapers get to where they need to go with much more success on the web, that is theoretically possible. But no, I don't see any rate increases in the foreseeable future."

EW: Why has the AP changed its tone in some AP copy? Some of AP's content is now quite opinionated, are you moving away from neutral ground?

TB: "It's an area that can be debated, but we are certainly not moving from a neutral position. We remain committedly neutral, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't have a voice, it's a more distinctive voice. It's a different voice to that which we may have had on some of our content in the past, but there is no leaving the neutral middle ground in terms of political leanings. We are providing value to the reader, we don't go to the consumer of course: we're a wholesaler. However, if we don't interest the reader, our customers aren't going to find that much value in our content. It's not a decision to be outrageous, or voicing off... it was an incremental change to be a little more distinctive in the market place."

EW: Does the AP have any new projects or innovations in the pipeline?

TB: "If we're not going to have all the revenue that we've had in the past from US newspapers and, more than likely, a few US broadcasters, we need to replace that revenue. We have several initiatives to help us do that, and they will be in content areas. Any more detail would be premature at this stage."

EW: Do you expect staff cuts at AP? If so, can you confirm that these will not happen in editorial?

TB: "Its clearly a company where the expense is largely people, if you're going to reduce expenses, you've got to look there. We need to be sure that the cuts are done very carefully because damaging the product and damaging the quality of the product starts a spiral that we clearly have no intention of starting.

"There is no decision on not cutting editorial, but depending on the levels of cuts that is required, its unlikely that you could do that entirely without looking at where the majority of our expenses lie, which is news staffing"

EW: What do you see in the future for newspapers? What do you think they need to do to their business models?

TB: "If I had the secret potion I would get very wealthy in a hurry. There are lots of good ideas floating round out there and they almost all revolve around targeting users with information, content and services, not expecting a single product - be it print or web - to be fully satisfying to everybody you want to reach in your market. A lot of customization and niche kinds of products are the things on most peoples minds."

See also:

Exploring the content sharing model: Is this the future of the US newspaper industry?
Opinion: Is the AP threatening its own future?
US: AP suspends rate hike
US: More newspapers to drop AP
US: Tribune Co. to drop AP

Success of the Web? Try Newspaper Values With a New Twist
Caroline Little, Adviser to Guardian News & Media and former CEO and publisher of Washington Post/Newsweek Interactives, United States:

"Keep one foot rooted in the core journalism values of the core product, and one that happens to be delivering the most revenue, and with the other, stretch as far as possible to try new things in this new medium."

"The news websites share the same journalistic values as the newspapers, but the web folks also are working in a medium that's indisputably different, one that requires trying new things and sometimes going down in flames," she said. "Fear of failure can be debilitating. All we have to lose by being too conservative is everything."

As the media landscape changes, seven longstanding competitors in the French newspaper market have been working together in an unprecedented way to test whether e-paper is a viable device to take newspapers forward. However, now that the test is over, each seems to have formed a different opinion on how to take this new publishing platform to the next level.

Electronic paper, or e-paper, is a portable display technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. It can be refreshed or rewritten countless times, thus negating the need for dead-tree paper. With rapidly rising paper, printing and distribution costs, such a device could be a boon to newspapers everywhere - if readers accept the device.

To gauge public demand for e-paper, the three main national French dailies, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Libération; the sports paper L'Équipe; the tabloid, Le Parisien; the business paper, Les Échos; and the entertainment-magazine Télérama, joined forces with telecommunications company France Telecom to test the Read&Go e-paper device. The survey group consisted of 120 people and took place over the course of the past few months. Having recently ended the test, Le Monde, Les Echos and Le Figaro revealed their findings.

Le Monde's sceptical optimism

According to General Director of LeMonde Interactif, Dao Nguyen, newspapers have felt compelled to design their own e-paper device. At the IFRA International E-Reading Conference in Paris, Nguyen said that the reading experience of newspaper content on the current devices in the market - for example the Kindle and Sony E-Reader - is unsatisfactory, going so far as to say, "There is no newspaper experience on a Kindle. They have shoved a newspaper into a book device." Nguyen feels that the makers of the current e-readers did not consider newspapers at all when designing the devices, commenting, "I don't blame them. Amazon is interested in selling books through Kindle."

However, despite these issues in its conception, Le Monde reported some positive findings from their e-paper trial with Read&Go. For instance, e-reader users read the device in the same fashion as they read a newspaper's print edition, ie, spending 20 to 30 minutes reading the news in one sitting. These numbers are much higher - and better for advertising revenue - than those of reader time spent with online editions, where people scan headlines and hop in and out throughout the day. Furthermore, the trial users were positive about the experience. According to an article in the New York Times, at least one user of the Read&Go device enjoyed the fact that it is both usable in direct sunlight, something difficult with a computer screen, as well as in complete darkness, which is impossible with a printed newspaper.

Following the test, Le Monde said it needs time to crunch the numbers and consider the statistics before fully committing, but that early indications are positive. Nguyen hinted that Le Monde feels confident that the relationship it has with its readers is strong enough that the paper will be able to sell a branded reader, possibly with subscriptions to Le Monde content. However, Nguyen refused to confirm if Le Monde is taking its e-paper experiment forward.

Les Echos: Want newspapers to work together

Contrary to the branded approach voiced by Le Monde, Philipe Jannet, Electronic Publishing Editor of Les Échoes believes that newspapers need to work together if they are to succeed with the new platform. During his presentation at the Ifra conference, he reported that users like to access many different news sources and therefore, a proprietary device will not work. Jannet believes that the newspapers must "own" the news they produce and pool their resources with other newspapers, thus having access to a pool of articles, much in the same way as Google News or Yahoo! News.

Les Échoes, according to Jannet, wants newspapers to group together to "sell articles", for example if a user is interested in the Cannes Film Festival, the news sources can provide the client with all the information they have on it in bulk. He expects a future where newspapers do not necessarily just sell newspapers with the new technology, but sell individual articles.

Le Figaro: E-Papers are the "Third Possibility"

In the same way that Jannet feels that newspapers should bundle content with other providers on e-readers, Clement Courvoisier, Digital Marketing Director of Le Figaro, was happy to have joined forces with the group of seven newspapers in order to test the device. Not only did it allow Le Figaro to share the expense of the experiment, but it also showed Le Figaro that there exists a "third possibility" to print papers and online editions.

Courvoisier does not expect a significant amount of extra work for newsroom staffers if the platform is introduced, as content is uploaded to the e-reader device much like it is to Le Figaro's website. Courvoisier stated that the there had "not yet" been any newsroom reorganisation due to the experiment, but he stated that it is still only in test phase.

During the test, no extra content was produced for this platform, Le Figaro used online articles for Read&Go; once again this could change further down the line if the product is released.

As at Le Monde, the visual style will be closer to that of the print edition. This is interesting as the news will be electronically provided making it conceptually closer to online, but perhaps because of its "hand-held" nature, the newspapers want it to reflect the print edition.

One consumer, multiple reading devices?

Despite the positive trial results, the path ahead remains unclear. A limited release of the product to test the waters seems the most sensible way to go - and a comprehensive advertising campaign - this is the type of product that consumers will either fully embrace or completely reject.

During her speech, Le Monde's Nguyen envisioned a future in which individuals have many devices for reading, but this seems an inconvenient and expensive prospect. What is more likely is that one device that meets all consumers various needs, including newspaper reading, will be the most successful.

Source: IFRA International E-Reading Conference, New York Times

Is online journalism becoming a consumer product? Are paychecks ruling the editorial agenda instead of news principles? The Miami Herald’s Edward Wasserman argues so.

The Daily Mirror will be revamping its website early 2008, for the second time in a year. The site will emphasize comments and user-led content. Editor Richard Wallace also criticized newspaper giveaways and described the editorial evolution of the print product.

US News & World Report is launching a “best of” website, which ranks a variety of products, from cars and trucks to electronics and packaged goods. Another online idea for newspapers?

Dave Morgan, Chairman of Tacoda and working on a project for the Newspaper Association of America, describes his vision of metropolitan newspapers’ situation in 2020: fully digital, increasingly personalized, mobile, and not ideal for newspapers.

The radical integration of their newsroom has helped The Daily Telegraph produce a better newspaper and website, with new “energy and vitality”.

The Danish newspaper market is in upheaval: free newspapers have rapidly taken over a 50% share. Not only are these papers being distributed on public transport, office buildings and coffee shops. Now 1 million Danish freesheets are also being delivered directly to readers’ front doors. Toger Peter Seidenfaden, Editor-in-Chief of the quality paid-for daily, Politiken, commented on the influx of free papers and previewed the presentation he will make at the 14th World Editors Forum in Cape Town, June 3-6.

The Guardian Changing Media Summit identifies three ways to monetise free content.

More from the Guardian Changing Media Summit. According to Ben Hammersley, Multimedia reporter, Guardian Unlimited, a lot of brands are at odds with their customers.

The ‘New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension’ conference, held in Paris, ends today. Yesterday, several prominent news experts discussed the development of online news, newspapers in relation to online news, legal implications of online news, and how it could, or couldn’t, help world press freedom.

Whilst first versions of the epaper have been prodiuced to give black and white content, Mike Nelson, general manager of sales for Fujitsu Europe said that full colour epaper is possible in two years.