Mark Bowden (one of my favorite writers) has a great piece in the May issue of Vanity Fair on the New York Time's (and its hereditary Publisher Arthur Sulzberger) struggles in the digital age.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/05/new-york-times200905
In the same years that the Time's has developed it's marvelous Website and wonderful mobile platforms its stock has plummeted from $50 to $5 a share. The company is drowning in debt, and has a long term strategy of simply "outliving" its competition with a "last man standing" strategy.
Does the financial decline of the Times during a period of technical innovation at the Paper have anything to teach us at our similarly old and esteemed institutions? What parallels can we draw between the newspaper business and the higher ed business?
I'm honestly not sure. I do know that the way I consume the Times now is almost totally on my mobile device (a Touch). I don't read the print newspaper. Seldom the online version. For me, it is the Touch all the way. And I don't pay a thing. The Times on the Touch allows easy portability, fast scrolling through stories, catching up on topics, and anytime convenience (my Touch is always with me at hand). Reading on my Touch is not intrusive, when I'm reading the Times at breakfast I don't feel like I'm shutting my kids out - as the screen is small enough that they are in my peripheral vision (but big enough that the reading experience is good).
One conclusion is that curricular reading and consumption of materials (videos, presentations etc.) will move (and I think rather quickly) to mobile devices. I've argued that if we don't lead, facilitate or support this transition that we will loose the battle for the attention of our students - loosing opportunities to inspire students to love our disciplines as we do.
But this may have been the same argument that the Times made. In releasing the iPhone/Touch application for the Times, the Paper has insured that I will probably never pay for a paper copy (or subscription again). For years I subscrbed to the Times. Now I don't - and would not. If everyone in my house has a mobile device then we can all read the same section.
As curriculum becomes increasingly disintermediated from the institution and the professor - as will happen with the spread of open curriculum and mobile devices - then the primary value proposition that remains is the power to confer the credential. Again, I am not sure if these developments will prove disruptive to our business models in higher education (as they have in music, newspapers, movies and soon book publishing). I do know that we should pay attention to those who think that the old way will end (see the EduPunks), even as we toil as members of the Ancien Regime.
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