Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor announced that it would be going to web-only publication. That isn’t exactly true, as they will continue to produce a weekly news magazine in printed form. But the fact is, the majority of their work will now be done online.
Of course, the transferring of periodicals to the web has been happening for quite some time; there was a day when newspapers and magazines could be cutting edge on their news. Now, they are days or weeks behind the information we can get at a snap on the Internet. In addition, the costs of producing a print publication are skyrocketing; publishing on the web is certainly more cost-effective.
I think there’s still a place for print periodicals to exist, certainly. I read several hard-copy newspapers each week and will continue to do so. I also subscribe to a handful of magazines whose information is useful to me. I do think that if a periodical does not fill a needed niche, then it is destined to die. It goes back to the “scarce goods” concept.
But how do these periodicals monetize their web content, and continue to be able to pay staff and overhead costs? That becomes the question. Several recent studies indicate that web readers are easily able to ignore web advertising, and some browsers even provide plug-ins that block ads for readers.
But studies also show that readers of the web prefer short reads of 3-4 paragraphs, and do not tend to read in-depth articles the way they do in a print publication. So, if you move to the web, do you run the risk of making your information much more shallow to appeal to the “quick read” audience that the web provides?
Big questions with no answers, at this point.