mediajunk

The web has posed a dilemma for newspapers. Whether it's a good idea to be online is a question few of them now ask, but whether they should charge for content -- there's the rub. Readers pay for the print version, goes the argument, so why shouldn't they pay for the downloaded version? But the experience of reading from the screen isn't the same as that of reading from paper, goes the counter-argument. People prefer paper. The internet helps grow the brand and widen the audience -- ultimately increasing sales of the print version. Regardless, many major titles -- such as the Irish Times -- have become subscription-based. The UK's Guardian newspaper has held out the temptation to make online readers pay -- until now. At least, those who want an online version of the newspaper will have to pay. Those who simply want the text, won't. "Huh?" I hear you ask. Well, the Guardian is making exact digital replicas of its print format available for download, for a fee, as PDF files. The "regular" site will still be free, but those who want to recreate the experience of the original paper publication can download the PDFs and print them locally. In theory, you could even download the PDFs, then print and sell copies of the newspaper wherever you are. The only snags would be the quality (and one-sidedness) of the paper, the difficulty in putting the pages together -- and the small but significant fact that doing so would be illegal. You can demo the PDF version of the Guardian at http://digital.guardian.co.uk/demo/