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I find myself in agreement with 99% of your blog, but I think we have to agree to differ over your assertion that ‘how to’ is an activity best performed online. Anyway, here’s my personal view.

Consider the following:

1. Most major conferences still offer their proceedings in both print and CD-Rom form. This may change, over time, but for now all attempts to go to e-proceedings only have met with strong resistance from attendees (a pretty good match for the ‘how-to’ readership community, although I’m certainly not claiming to match the technical depth of a DAC, DATE, ISSCC or IEDM).

2. In my experience, even where ‘how to’ information is available in an electronic format, users overwhelmingly prefer it in Acrobat PDFs because they subsequently print it out. This type of copy contains diagrams and requires a finesse in terms of its design – spitting it out in an HTML template makes something already complex even harder to follow – that it still works best within the traditional, print-led layout that Acrobat can quite faithfully replicate.

3. ‘How to’ magazines increasingly get filed and retained. One point that perhaps we don’t make hard enough in that community is that the magazines have far longer shelf lives than even those of us who produce them may anticipate. One of the biggest surprises I got recently was the number of readers for EDATFJ who have got in touch saying that we have now been around long enough that they need an index to help them navigate the issues they have kept.

4. The most heavily technical end of the ‘how to’ market – which, in addition to proceedings from various conferences and the more specialist titles from the learned societies, I would define as the publishing activities of groups like Springer and Reed’s Elsevier business – remains in comparatively rude health. And, again, predominantly in print. This suggests that the readership continues to see print as the most familiar format in which it receives this kind of information.

None of these points necessarily supports a view that ‘how to’ and print will always need to go together. However, for now, they do point to a greater coincidence between content and format for that market than may be appreciated – certainly in comparison with other types of content. Thus, I’d argue that ‘how to’ is still transitioning from print and may take some time to complete the process, whereas news, analysis and features are much further along the path.

Where will we end up – my guess is that some time from now, such content will be delivered in a locally-printed form (and indeed we have a hybrid e-and-print circulation already for our magazine in its print layout form). However, for the reasons I’ve set out above, trying to force the reader into one particular model of consumption might also not be the wisest move.

Paul

Of course, there’s a click-thru rationale for that, but my company’s Digital Goddess just sent around some research to justify the edict that demonstrates that people don’t read the web so much as skim it.

I suspect that’s the way most people read paper-based papers, but it still isn’t very encouraging when it comes to moving breaking news on the web, either.

We’re in a retreat mode right now. We’re reducing magazines at the same time we are reducing staffs. Just because you are online doesn’t mean it doesn’t take less time to tap the keys. And while some people think 5 minute podcasts are even shorter have never done editing on sound or video. Nor have they set up lights microphones, done sound checks and do multiple takes.

If anything, the web is increasing the need for manpower at a time where we are cutting it back. That is going to cost something.

Companies covered by the electronics press seem to think that the coverage is their right, like health care, and that someone else needs to pay for it. We’ve reach the bottom of that barrel and it’s going to happen that the companies that advertise on the web will be getting the coverage on the web. Cranking out mediocre press releases for Google searches are just not going to cut it.

The press has gone the way of lunch. It’s not free anymore.