Digital online archives of huge value to newspapers/magazines
The statistics do not lie, the times are changing. Traditional newspapers and magazines have to face the inevitable. As older generations are replaced by the younger tech savvy ones, online news gain ever more momentum, to the detriment of paper publications. People like to get a quick glimpse of the news at the office, much like they read blogs or purely online news sites.
So how do established but older names like the New York Times, Newsweek and Time magazine differentiate themselves from Yahoo for example? The answer seems to be in experience and huge archives that for some publications go as far back as the 19th century!
By digitizing and tagging old articles and photographic material, the depth and size of a site can be enhanced unbelievably. Additionally, all this information helps with online searches that can more frequently point to a publication’s site. As the New York Times states, up to now lots of sites kept their archives hidden behind subscription charges. However, by opening them up to everybody -completely or partly- they manage to significantly augment their traffic. By cleverly presenting tagged older articles, readers are lured to spend more time on the same site with a higher possibility of clicking to advertisements -the lifeblood of online publications.
Clearly, getting through all the old paper information, tagging it and presenting it in an attractive manner is painstaking work. Nevertheless, despite fresh info having the priority, people like to now and then dig a bit deeper in older stuff. To achieve a magazine feel, sites like that of Sports Illustrated recreate the page flicking we are all used with, a touch that many people like -also used for online product catalogues with great success.
Apart from the immediacy of the online archives, we should not overlook the fact that eventually paper deteriorates irreversibly and scans are the only way to save paper archives from enemies like humidity. The whole idea isn’t of course new, back in the 90s the National Geographic Magazine was selling CD archives of the first century of its life. The quality of the scans was awful by today’s standards but it was -and still is- a great way to access everything published in the magazine since it started in 1888!
All signs show that the move of all info online is irreversible. As long as it is implemented and marketed in an attractive fashion, it is definite that online readers will like to come back again and again, a fact that is of immeasurable value to sites small or large.
Link: New York Times
