For more than 500 years, ink printed on paper
has been the best medium for delivering written information.
But as the world becomes increasingly digital,
all that is changing.
Here, at the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab
in Boulder, Colorado, a team of journalists, designers,
technologists, and researchers is putting together
the tools that will take today's newspaper
into the electronic age.
We will have the interactive graphic now.
So when you click on the graphic Atlanta made on the front page,
or you click on the story--
Roger Fidler established the lab for Knight-Ridder
in the fall of 1992.
Today, he serves as its director.
All human communication systems are undergoing a transformation
from one form to another.
And that's all being brought about by emergent technologies
and by cultural changes.
Several years ago, I coined the word "mediamorphosis"
to describe this transformation.
Newspapers are certainly going through that now,
but all forms of media that we know today
will be transformed over the next 10- 15 years.
The transforming inventions are, of course,
the computer and digital telecommunications.
We're finding that our capacity to be
able to process and deliver information through information
superhighways and computer systems
are increasing in efficiency.
And they're resulting in reduced cost for publishing.
Well, I do believe that for the first time,
we're going to begin seeing an alternative to ink on paper.
It may be difficult to conceptualize
the idea of digital paper.
But in fact, we believe that's what's going to happen.
IDL is a media think tank.
We bring people to the lab to give us more insights
into the developments of technologies, or particularly
digital technologies and digital communication.
Our role is to investigate the opportunities that
may be there for newspaper companies
over the next few years.
And to also try to develop a long range vision of where
the newspaper industry is headed over the next five,
ten, twenty years.
An important part of this evolution
is the emergence of the electronic tablet.
This device is under development at consumer electronics
companies around the world.
Tablets will be a whole new class of computer.
They'll weigh under two pounds.
They'll be totally portable.
They'll have a clarity of screen display comparable to ink
on paper.
They'll be able to blend text, video, audio,
and graphics together.
And they'll be part of our daily lives
around the turn of the century.
We may still use computers to create information,
but we'll use the tablet to interact with information--
reading, watching, listening.
Our goal here at the Information Design Lab
is to develop the appropriate interfaces and appropriate
technology so that when we actually do
produce electronic editions of newspapers for these tablets,
that we could hand it to you and you would immediately
know how to use the newspaper, because it looks familiar too.
In effect, what we're doing is building
a bridge of familiarity.
When we talk about human communication systems, what
we discover in, throughout history,
is that they have evolved.
And new forms tend to take on many
of the characteristics of older forms for some period of time.
Over time, of course, they do evolve and take
on their own characteristics.
I believe the same thing will happen in our transition
from ink on paper to digital forms of newspapers,
and magazines, and books.
That in the beginning, they will retain
many of the familiar characteristics
of print products today.
And I think that's absolutely essential.
We don't want to have to issue people manuals to read
their newspaper.
You already know how to read a newspaper.
You know how to turn pages, pull out a section,
find things that are interesting to you.
We can enhance that with electronic technology
and make it much more useful and add value to it.
But we believe we have to build a bridge of familiarity first
to get us from the ink on paper product into the digital world.
Let's take a closer look at the Information Design Lab's vision
of the electronic newspaper of the future.
On first glance, it looks just like a printed newspaper.
In fact, you can browse stories and turn pages
just as you would on paper.
But if a story interests you, you can read it more deeply.
Suppose this story about Bosnia catches your attention.
Just touch the text and the full story appears.
What you read is no longer limited
to the physical constraints of the printing press
and production process.
A story is edited for content and completeness,
not for newshole.
And the tablet newspaper extends communication
beyond the written word.
Touch the map and it comes alive,
using the tools of sound and animation to tell the story.
To understand the land divisions proposed today,
one must look at how the diverse cultures of the Balkans
recently were a part of Yugoslavia,
which formerly held a prominent position in central Europe.
Access to information concerns everyone.
This vision of an electronic newspaper
lets its readers move beyond physical barriers.
If you can't read small type, enlarge it
until the type size feels comfortable for you.
Tablet newspapers can also combine video and audio clips
with written stories.
For example, in this sports story,
sound bites and instant replays mean
you don't have to worry about missing that exciting play.
Double play is gone.
This ball's in the air.
It might be deep enough to score on.
Batting underneath, he's got a great arm.
Here comes the runner.
Here comes the throw.
They got him.
He never got to the plate.
Hey, look at this.
Swing the bat here.
Double play is gone.
The ball's in the air.
It might be deep enough to score on.
Batting--
And unlike television, you can watch it as many times
as you want or slow the video down to look at just one frame.
The baseball and [INAUDIBLE] is gunned down.
The tablet paper even flags items of special interest
to you.
We've included a personal profile page,
where you can tell the newspaper to find ads or stories that
match your interests.
You can see an index of the entire newspaper
with items that match your special interests highlighted,
turn to a set of abstracts that match your personal profile,
and jump from the index or the abstract to the full story.
But moving to a new form doesn't mean
you should give up anything, including the ability
to save and share pieces of the newspaper.
Just like the printed form, with the tablet newspaper,
you can clip and save articles or send them electronically
to a friend.
You can do all this without using a manual
because everyone already understands
how a newspaper works.
One of the things that helps readers
navigate through the newspaper is its familiar look and feel.
We know where to find everything in our newspaper,
it's the one we read every day.
Retaining that look and feel is very important
because people don't buy generic news.
They buy a specific newspaper with a branded identity.
For most people, a newspaper is like a friend.
It's somebody you know, you have come to trust.
Over the last 15 years, there have
been many attempts to develop electronic newspapers.
And many of the technologists who
have been pursuing these objectives
assume that information is simply a commodity
and people really don't care where that information comes
from as long as it matches their set of personal interests.
I disagree with that view.
People recognize the newspapers they subscribe to.
They don't even have to see the name on the nameplate.
If it's on a newsstand, they immediately
recognize The New York Times or Wall Street Journal
or a Philadelphia Inquirer.
And it's also true for the local newspapers in small towns.
And there is a loyalty attached to those names.
When you buy that newspaper and you go through the newspaper,
you know how it's organized.
It feels comfortable to you.
Advertising is an important part of the Knight-Ridder model.
It helps underwrite the cost of the newspaper,
making the news accessible to everyone.
Plus, people like advertising.
It's a part of the local information package.
And at times, it can be as important as the news itself.
Most people want to know what's on sale this week
at the department store.
And they want to clip the Sunday coupons.
The tablet newspaper takes advertising to new dimensions,
making the ad more useful to readers
who are interested in it without annoying readers who
aren't at all interested in it.
Just as you can go deeper into a story,
you can go deeper into an ad.
Plus, the tablet has two-way communications capability,
so you can buy and sell electronically, make
reservations, or request more information.
Well, you have to think of ads somewhat differently
in electronic publishing.
In a sense, they're very much like a shopping center.
And in the print model, we find that you have a surface
and it's a two dimensional world.
So what you see is what you get.
The advertiser presents their image or the sale,
but it requires you then, after you've
seen the ad, to go do something later with it.
In the electronic world, we're really
dealing with a three dimensional world.
The advertising on the surface pages that you browse, just
like a newspaper today, are in a sense the storefront window.
If I'm interested in that ad and want to know more,
it's simply a matter of touching that ad.
And at that point, I go through an electronic doorway
into the advertiser space.
And in that space might be a video clip
for 15 or 20 seconds, sort of a TV commercial,
but I'm in control.
The tablet makes information 100% accessible.
It goes where you go.
If you don't want to read the paper,
the tablet can read the stories to you.
Read story.
Geneva.
Adopting the language and locale of a bygone diplomatic era.
And you can get your news anywhere.
We envision kiosks that will download your publications
onto electronic cards that go inside the tablet.
So if you were doing business in Miami,
but your hometown is Denver, you can still
get your local paper delivered every morning.
This is one of the most exciting places
to be in the newspaper industry today.
This is where I think we're going to play
a role in changing history.
And the people that we have here in our laboratory
are creative, energetic, and very concerned
about the newspaper industry itself,
and how to build on the strengths of the industry
rather than simply just starting all over again.
There are many people who believe
that newspapers are dinosaurs and that they're
going to become the roadkill on the information superhighway
on the not too distant future.
We believe exactly the opposite.
We believe that newspapers in fact
can evolve into a new form of media
that blends the old familiar aspects of a newspaper
with the new technologies that are emerging.
So that you have the ability to read and browse and scan
as we do today.
At the same time, being able to interact with a newspaper,
to interact with advertisers through your newspaper,
in ways that are not possible in print media today.