Google and its subsidiary YouTube are taking steps to generate their own content. Until now both have relied on the content of others.
The move by YouTube to generate its own high-quality original content has got the most coverage. It wants to complete with Internet-based TV. It has signed up sporting coverage already.
The move by Google UK to launch a paper and digital magazine has got less coverage but is none the less significant. Think Quarterly, as the magazine is called, is aimed at Google’s partners. It will be printed in limited numbers. But anybody can see it online.
For Google to bother with a paper edition at all is significant as it shows that even the digital giant understands that paper works.
- High quality reproduction on paper beats almost any screen;
- Paper is now more of a “special event” given the popularity of digital content;
- Paper is cheap;
- Paper can be cut to any size you like;
- Paper comes from renewable sources unlike pcs etc; and
- Paper can be recycled easily.
About 394 million tonnes of paper is made a year in the world. And about 77% of it is recycled now.
You may take paper for granted: just look around you and see how much there is. Now Google is adding to the pile.
Nice to hear a voice supporting paper in a sea of commentary about the “death of print.” Think the anti-print movement is SO overblown, and that tablet makers are appealing to gadget-lovers and early adopters to try to create a market for tablet magazines and mag apps. But print is such a superior medium for long-form reading, and it doesn’t cost me an initial $499+ investment to receive printed issues of my magazines of choice. I’ll be curious to see where we are 1, 2 and 5 years from now on this whole issue. Paper hasn’t gone away in recent decades, despite the exponential growth of digital devices, and while print magazines are in an adjustment phase, this is by no means the death knell. Early sluggish sales in tablet mags seem to contradict the notion that readers are wholeheartedly embracing digital mag media.