This has to be the worst idea ever:
“The Printed Blog, a Chicago start-up, plans to reprint blog posts on regular paper, surrounded by local ads, and distribute the publications free in big cities.”
Story on the NYTimes (here).
New Newspaper Made Up of Blog Posts
Previous post: The work prepares you for that moment
Next post: Esquire Sells An Ad On The Cover
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
“This has to be the worst idea ever”
yep, I bet the folks who ran horse and buggy shops back in the day said the same thing when someone came up with the idea for the car.
I am an avid reader of your blog, it rarely disappoints and I always find myself intrigued by your posts, your words, epxerience, etc.
But, I gotta say, I hope you embrace the fact that the face of media, photography, publishing is all changing, quite rapidly…some ideas fail, some may not seem so hot from the on start, but the vehicles that deliver images and words across the globe are undertaking a great amount of change, I just hope this change is able to deliver content in the quickest and most efficient manner and the quality of those words and images continue to develop and strive for the best.
@embrace new media,
You’ve got to be joking. Printing blogs is a step in the wrong direction. Hardly an original idea.
@A Photo Editor,
Devolution!!!
@embrace new media,
You say you hope this change is able to deliver content in the quickest and most efficient manner… wait.. you’re defending this idea?
What is faster or more efficient than clicking your live bookmarks tab, and having all of your news in front of you instantly? Creating a lameass publication that wastes paper, power, and time?
“Embrace New Media?” c’mon… you know this shit is wack.
Here’s my favorite quote, from the photo caption on the story:
“About 300 blogs have given the paper permission to publish their work, saving the company the cost of paying reporters.”
And then there’s this one, from a blogger who has agreed to let their work be published:
“If it gets us exposure to 20 new people, then I’ll be happy.”
Where have I heard all that before?
90% of the blogs I read, regularly reference another blog, article or image via a link. That’s going to be kinda hard to pull off in print…
With a big emphasis on everyone going green these days, this has to be quite possibly the most wasteful, disgraceful attempt at selling ad space.
The internet is one of the main reasons that papers are losing business (among other reasons or course), and this seems to be a giant step backward.
Save the paper. Save the ink. Save the production expense. Get a better idea to make money.
Shameful, stupid, and useless.
There has been a newspaper like that where I live (Slovenia) for a year now and it’s certainly more interesting to read than any other free shit they hand out. It mostly consits of articles from different blogs and sometimes things are written especially for the issue. It’s also very tastefully designed, the advertisments aren’t over the top… All in all it’s not bad and I hardly see any good arguments against such papers in the posts above.
@Lunco, waste and the environment isn’t a good argument? Seriously?
@Steve, well, since both arguments are based on the assumption that the newspaper is going to be bad, they aren’t really valid.
To follow this train of thought, you might be compelled to say that we should stop printing all publications (books, newspapers, etc.), because everyone has access to a computer these days and it would be a lot more efficient and less time (and resource) consuming than reading printed materials.
Sounds like JPG Magazine, but for news.. stale, stale day-old news.
I gotta love people. They revert to what they know regardless how idiotic it is.
So now you get the worst of both worlds: all the mediocrity and inanity of the vast majority of blogs in the world (present company excepted of course, Rob:) ) combined with the ruinous production and distribution costs of dead-tree reproduction, and the contempt that falls upon anything “free”.
Sounds like the business plan for a US auto company, without the UAW.
@Michael S., dude, you hit the nail on the head.
What a waste of paper!
kind of like the idea. Doubt that it will work but don’t see a point in dissing it either.
@Werner, the point in dissing it is the complete waste of trees, plain and simple. That doesn’t even take into consideration the resources it takes to print on the paper.