Entry 40: "Download All About It!"

Yo!

So apparently the internet is causing the death of printed media as we know it. Most of you pretty much saw it coming, right? All the news organizations have converted over to publishing their content online as well as in print (less and less) by now, and the old-fashioned ink-on-paper is paying for its own obsoleteness. It's sort of like when you live in a small neighborhood full of mom-and-pop stores that one day gets its own Wal-Mart Supercenter. ....And Blockbusters. ...And Home Depot. ....And McDonald's. ...Well, those guys are everywhere anyway, but the point here is there's just no way that the old stuff and the "new hotness" can coexist. It's just never worked out that way.

Part of the blame can go to the print companies selling out on their established media outlet(s) in favor of the 21st Century e-publishing method for the sake of keeping up with the changing times, but most of it arguably does rest on our culture; as American consumers, we're always looking for the better, bigger, faster, cheaper way from A to B. But the simple fact is, even though we're almost 3/4 of the way through the first decade of the 2000's, there are still a lot of people who don't have internet access and can't get to a library for one reason or another. No, I'm not just talking about outside America.

According to 2003 U.S. Census data obtained by MaisonBisson.com, Sixty-two million people (55% of American households) had internet access then. It's probably closer to seventy or seventy-five percent now, but of those web-ready people today, ConsumerAffairs.com said in September that more people who have access don't have broadband cable or DSL, but rather "narrowband" dial-up. By excluding all the people who use dial-up because it takes them too long to access the page, and the twenty-five percent or more American households who don't have access at all, you're dealing with a pretty big group of newspaper/magazine readers getting intentionally left out of the loop.

I'll give you an example: the US Official PlayStation Magazine, a publication known for its monthly playable PlayStation 2 demo discs, was canned by publisher Ziff Davis Media because of reason one, the fact that PlayStation 3 is able to get the demos online through their PlayStation Store and download them through the system itself without touching a PC, making the disc distribution method... What's the word, kids? OBSOLETE. Reason two was, of course, because gamers get most of their news online anyway, and since OPM having to use the discs as a crutch to keep them going and in business wasn't necessary anymore, they got the axe. That's not the end of Ziff Davis' major business matters either, because as QuickJump reports, there's a big sale going down any day now that puts the fates of flagship gaming website 1up.com, and sister magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly in jeopardy. And not the kind Ken Jennings makes three million dollars knowing a lot about. Furthermore, I'm sure some of you have heard about certain major newspaper companies considering discontinuing the paper process entirely and using some new flexible plastic screen you can download news to and read just like a newspaper, except you'll presumably be able to see more than text, visually, sort of like every newspaper in every Harry Potter movie, I guess.

Bottom Line.... As Bob Dylan once sang, the times, they are a-changin'.... but in a world where corporations quick to jump onto the next big thing at any cost quicker than the very people they make their money from are ready to do it so quietly, the websites they're trying to steal traffic from are the only ones expressing concerns.... It just kinda seems like the wrong kind of change.

.....But that's just me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta check tonight's TVGuide.com listings.

-D.