Last week in Moscow at the World Editors Forum I had a chance to hear details of Microsoft's so-called "Times Reader" electronic newspaper vision of the future. A lot of the conversation I've heard about this reader has assumed Microsoft is reinventing PDF. That is not the case.
Instead, Microsoft -- or rather the typography unit within Microsoft -- is trying to reinvent the World Wide Web in ways that are advantageous to publishers (and disadvantageous to consumers).
I have a feeling that I'm peering back into 1994. Control. Look and feel. Offline usability. Client-side page assembly using templates. We had a lot of them in those days in the Interchange platform. Meanwhile, Microsoft was working on its own vision, called MSN, which was going to be a proprietary system on a page-authoring platform called Blackbird.
The primitive HTML Web arrived, with no tools and no layout control and noting but openness to recommend it. And it blew everything away.
In its new proposal, Microsoft provides (sells) the publisher a software development toolkit and presumably access to Microsoft-certified developers who can create a proprietary downloadable application. The application will run only under Windows Vista and versions of XP that have had special add-on libraries installed.
The publisher has to perform a significant amount of work to get a service up and running; it is not a turnkey proposition. The SDK is to be released by the third quarter of this year.
What comes out of the process is a special browser that is hard-wired to the publisher's content. The user must download and install that browser, which places an icon on the desktop.
The project is driven by Bill Hill, a flamboyant Scotsman -- the kind that makes a point of wearing a kilt in public -- who worked for a Scottish newspaper a couple of decades ago. He went into desktop publishing 20 years ago, worked for Aldus, and wound up running Microsoft's typographical operation. He's a passionate lover of type and wants to remake the Web in ways that allow type designers complete presentational control.
Interestingly, Microsoft isn't peddling this idea to the digerati or semidigerati who run the online divisions of media companies. It's approaching the print-centric side directly, presenting at the American Society of Newspaper Editors last month and the World Editors Forum this month.
The Times Reader browser has the following features:
- Subscribability: It automatically downloads files to the user's hard drive so they can be consumed offline. This feature actually was in IE 3.0 (called "channels") but nobody used it, so it has disappeared. Given that the trend is toward ubiquitous wireless networking, I don't see this as a strategic advantage longterm.
- Smart templates: The publisher can create page designs that have conditional, scripted behaviors. For example, if the page is viewed at 200 pixels, the content might be displayed in one column; at 600 pixels, two columns; at 1024 pixels, three columns, et cetera. The content re-wraps automatically. In addition, there is dynamic dictionary-based line hyphenation and justification, which isn't possible with current Web technologies.
- Paginated, not scrolled: In a way similar to what the International Herald Tribune has done for years, the reader breaks long stories into series of pages, and you jump ahead one full page at a time. Hill argues that this reduces "doubling," the phenomenon of reading the same line twice, which he says is a problem when you move ahead in a scrolled presentation. (In hearing him talk about that, I recalled that in 18th century books, lines often were intentionally doubled from page to page because publishers thought it helped readers deal with page transitions.)
- Embedding fonts: Publishers can embed their own fonts in the product, and the fonts cannot be copied or used for other applications. This allows the NYT to use its own headline fonts as well as body type from its print edition.
- Strong intellectual property rights management: The publisher can determine whether and how much of a piece of content can be (for instance) forwarded via email, copied into a weblog posting, etc. (The NYT demo supports MSN Spaces and Blogger.com one-click blog postings.)
- Dynamically placed and sized advertising. An advertiser could buy a percentage of screen real estate, with the precise ad display determined client-side. Ads can include any of the usual Web multimedia capabilities.
My reaction to all of this is great skepticism. There is not an idea in the entire suite that I have not seen before. It seems to me that Microsoft is solving a series of problems that mean a great deal to Bill Hill and perhaps a few print publishers, but mean almost nothing to the consumer, at a cost to the consumer of additional restrictions, complexity, platform dependence, and lack of interoperability with the Web.
It is the Web, not the desktop, where consumers spent their time. I don't think this train is going to leave the station.
Comments
Conventions of typography disrupted
I'll start by saying I have a ton of respect for Bill Hill and his Microsoft typography team -- they're excellent teachers and students of the craft.
But what I think they are missing, and periodical publishers who pin their hopes on high-fidelity e-reader devices are missing, is that the quaint typographers' notions of long-form legibility and readability were thoroughly disrupted with the onset of the Internet.
Now we're in a world where people get their text data in chewy little chunks, to meet fast little wants and needs as time permits.
Now we have created a whole new shorthand for SMS and IM text messages, which, perhaps surprisingly, ur i n ur brain gt used 2 n a hry.
Web on-screen typography is just good enough for those uses. So is mobile device typography. Yet we feel compelled to invest in refining the casual reading experience so people can ingest information the way we've always provided it.
Periodicals are vain to think online readers finish every 1,500-word article without hitting the Print button, or at all. Designing an online newspaper for the Sunday-morning-over-coffee-in-my-easy-chair reader ignores the reality that most of our online services get very little pop from that use case.
"... reminds me of the places I've been..."
I had occasion to re-read Marshall McLuhan a week or so ago; one of the salient points is that established media organizations will try to fit the square peg of new technology into the round hole of established (and usually outdated) business models.
It certainly makes sense that the NYT would be doing that, if only because part of their model involves controlling costs related to the production of a print product, including owning the paper mills. But it's truly intriguing to find that Microsoft would consider there to be a viable market for a product that in essence is a step backwards -- to the days when a personal computer was ONLY a personal computer, and not a device that enables the sharing of information.
Jay's point is well-taken as well. My aging parents -- who brought me and my siblings up in the weekly newspaper business back when the term "double truck" actually meant moving two pages from the composition table to the press on a hand truck -- print the NYT crossword puzzle every day. But one of the things they did when they owned newspapers was to change from a serif typeface to a sans serif one, specifically because most of their readership was getting older, and it was easier to read for those people.
Abe Rosenthal is probably turning in his grave...
Video Demo of “Times Reader”
I was initially skeptical as well, but some of my fears were allayed after watching this video demonstration of Times Reader from Microsoft's The 10 Show. I'd say that now I'm still wary, but a bit more open to see what happens.
Good enough can be more than good enough
In addition to his main point (which is a great insight) what strikes me about Jay's comment is the phrase "good enough" -- a Christensen/Innosight disruptive-innovation buzzword.
The Web is a great example of the march of a disruptive technology from the low end upward.
In 1994 we didn't have font tags, tables, or control over the background page color (and some browsers defaulted to gray). The first Star Tribune Online HTML prototype I built (on a Mac Quadra in April 1994) had all the presentational nuance of a wire-service budget. And very few people in established media took the Web seriously.
But for many the Web was "good enough" -- it did not need to compete against Interchange's SGML and templates, or Prodigy's NAPLPS animations, or GEnie's knapsack full of offline automated reader clients. It competed against nonconsumption and made it possible for just about everybody to participate for practically no cost. And it took off like crazy.
Over time the Web has moved upmarket, and while Web standards may not yet deliver the full set of features and typographical sophistication in Microsoft's proprietary plan, it's actually possible to deliver much of what Microsoft has described with a combination of existing open technologies.
how to print this blog entry?
So, Steve, how do I print this blog entry so that I can read it?
It's amazing to me how many
It's amazing to me how many people cling to the phenom of the internet in 1995 and 2006 as if it were the last great innovation or a static thing. I remember the first time I used the internet in browser - super compelling even though it looked like crap. But 12 years later I'm no longer satisfied with just connectedness and linkability. I want a better user experience. I'm tired of crappy browser apps, lost data, the evil white-repost of death when a connection fails, heavy scrolling etc. The Web must evolve. Ajax is a step in the right direction.
I also remember the first time I used Keyhole (now google earth). Wow. What a cool way to navigate the globe. And the first time I used Picasa. A really good photo organizer. Or Vongo for Movies. etc etc. The Web is an amazing platform and HTML has changed the world. But the Web in 2006 is not everything. I want client applications pushing the boundaries and eventually pushing the Web in new directions. In terms of this app, Text presentation on the Web today is good enough the way the Dos Command Prompt was good enough before the graphical user interface. It needs to get better and it will evolve. I applaud anyone's attempt to innovate to move the experience forward.
Publishers before consumers
"Instead, Microsoft -- or rather the typography unit within Microsoft -- is trying to reinvent the World Wide Web in ways that are advantageous to publishers (and disadvantageous to consumers)."
How many times have software developers been down this road, and, how long will they continue to do this? Over the years I have seen presentation after presentation of a product that gets (insert journalist title here) excited over the products ability to mimmick print format and practices, yet, fails miserably at appealing to the consumer. I guess they will continue to do this as long as media companies continue to throw away their money investing in them.
No crystal ball here, but, I am confident the Times Reader project will fall well short of expectations.
Just sayin'.
Print Replication Is Not The Answer or Even The Question
It's about fidelity, richness and user experience. Typography is only interesting if it results in a better user experience. The Times Reader is not about replicating the print newspaper (that's been tried by several softward products). It's about leveraging new software tools for better presentation, better navigation, better ad placement targeting and presentation, better search, better offline support, better printing, better commenting, etc etc. If, as an end user, none of that appeals to you than so be it. But I think a number of users will find it a compelling experience.
Control, not replication
I didn't see anything in the product, or say anything in my blog posting about replicating print; in fact, I noted that this is emphatically not a PDF-like product. My issues with this initiative have to do with control and consumer (as opposed to producer) benefit.
Many years ago, Scott Kurnit, then VP/Marketing at Prodigy, took a look at the Web-vs-proprietary issue at a time when Prodigy was developing a killer next-generation platform under the design guidance of Harley Manning. Kurnit's conclusion: "OK open systems beat great closed systems every time." He was right; the Web, primitive as it was, crushed the proprietary online services in less than a year.
With open systems, consumers have freedom of choice, and freedom to become producers.
Is the function of a web browser changed?
Web browsers have evolved during the last 10 years and they are more a client software application platform then a tool to read formatted text. Today they can run entertaining and productive software applications and all sort of malicious scripts. And I’m not sure that are any longer developed for the best reading experience and they provides the best internet user’s experience.
There are successful internet applications for the masses, for instance the messengers engaged million of internet users without the need of a web browsers. Massive multiplayer games are also very successful internet base applications that not require a web browser. Music players also.
Are you sure we not ready for new and richer internet experiences that not require a web browser for reading news, watching videos or shopping?
Head above water
I see this entire thing as a way for newspaper publishers to keep their heads above water. Where i live they have been struggling for a long time now. The last idea they had, they decided to deliver daily free newspapers to everyone in the country - only, they forgot to ask people if they wanted them. So, the result is that we have newspapers lying everywhere, people burn them on the beaches to get rid of them. It's insane!
Basically, this Microsoft product is once again just another way to stay head above water. Luckily, it doesn't crave the burning of the rain forest, but in my opinion it is stillborn. We live in a world where cross-platform and open standards are gaining territory fast. Buying this system contradicts that development, and i foresee that most people will turn their backs on it in a year or two. It will live for a while, but as the possibilities of the net grows, it will die, leaving room for better, open systems.
I also find it interesting that it is possible to draw direct parallels to the music industry. Instead of embracing the possibilities of the internet, they decided to turn against it, and deliver products with restrictions, that would lower the general quality of the product considerably. Just now, they are beginning to realise that DRM is not the way to go, and therefore online music shops have appeared, using "DRM Free" as a sales point - and a good point it is.
So, the printed publishing industry is starting their journey down that same road, and i recon that they will be done fooling around in about 5 years. At that point they will realise that there are too many ways to get information to make "that one newspaper" so important that a household will pay for reading it. They need to find better, open alternatives.