A friend at the Times-Dispatch sent me a link to a blog I’ve never seen before, which I hereby point you to. This post refers to the Time article by Walter Isaacson in which he argues that “micropayments,” that is, small payments for reading individual articles on newspaper websites, will not only work with us users, but will save newspapers.
If you listen closely, you can feel the final, futile vibrations of a dinosaur’s tail as it thrashes helplessly upon the unforgiving earth.
I refuted Isaacson’s essay in this post on Feb. 6. The Print CEO blog has an excerpt from the Daily Show, where Isaacson spoke with Jon Stewart; and the blog doesn’t refute Time‘s piece, but suggests instead that
Jon Stewart’s idea to use chemically addictive ink might have some merit too. At least to save the printed newspaper.
This explanatory essay, linked from the Print CEO blog, does a much better job at explaining why micropayments will never work.
The dinosaurs just don’t understand. And they won’t until the ugly truth is shoved down their throats.
Rus Wornom 
Hey hear is an idea!What do newspapers do or have that no one else has?Sports! Local sports! Scores! Play-by-play! And lots of photos. Perhaps the “community” papers will pick this up.And “old” news. Tons of microfilm, photos, even newspaper pages, reconstructed by demand and for $.Don’t remember what you do, do what is right.
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