The Death of Print or a Need for Reimaging 

On the very first ever official Bitmob podcast the topic  on, "The death of print", was one of the most heated. Throughout the lengthy discussion the Bitmob crew lamented the fact that how people wanted to view their information has drastically changed. Everyone except for "A Life Well Wasted's" Robert Ashley, seemed to consume information solely from the web.  The conversation seemed to conclude with the general consensus that newsprint is on the way out everywhere not just exclusive to gaming magazines . The biggest thing that they noted was the unfortunate fact that features do not lead as well to the web, as print, because of lead times and tendencies of the web writers.

In this post I have one  point that I am trying to make, print does not need to die, it just needs to evolve. Since the conception of the very first newspaper in the early 1600's very little has actually changed. Sure the paper quality, ink, and format has changed slightly but not to a major degree, like film or TV. Maybe a change in format is necessary.

The biggest challenge that print faces in the United States is the evolving needs and wants of the tech savvy consumer and the cost of distributing across the US.  This is likely why we have not seen a similar situation in U.K. where their distribution costs are a lot less. Why is it not possible when  subscribing to a magazine, to be able to access a PDF online, anytime, with your account attached to that subscription. This subscription could be read only to avoid piracy.   On the podcast the crew mentioned that it was not a need for a change of content but the ease of availability.