Actually it is cancel the news paper, cancel subscriptions to magazines and even cancel paper based books. You can use an iPad, the iPhone, the iPod and other smart phones and tablet computers when you cancel the news paper. More and more people are purchasing smart devices which they have with them at all times and they subscribe to RSS feeds to get their news for the day. Some people will even browse web sites from news organizations to keep abreast of what is happening in the world.
Cancel the News Paper – Survey Results
A new survey which focused on the iPad is included in this post that supports this view:
Here’s what a team at the Missouri School of Journalism learned in a survey of 1,609 Apple (AAPL) iPad owners conducted over the past three months:
- Using the iPad to follow breaking news reports and current events is the most popular use for the device, with 84.4% of respondents saying this is one of their main uses.
- More than three quarters (78.6%) of the users spent at least 30 minutes during a typical day consuming news on their iPad.
- Nearly half (48.9%) of the respondents said they spent an hour or more during a typical day consuming news on their iPad.
- Among the 931 respondents who indicated that they currently subscribe to print newspapers, there is a statistically significant, moderately strong, positive correlation between iPad news consumption and the likelihood of canceling their print subscriptions. (emphasis ours)
- For example, more than half (58.1%) of the respondents who subscribe to printed newspapers and use their iPad at least an hour a day for news said they are very likely to cancel their print subscriptions within the next six months.
- More than three out of 10 (30.6%) respondents indicated that they do not subscribe to printed newspapers, with another one out of 10 (10.7%) saying that they had already canceled their subscriptions to printed newspapers and switched to reading digital newspapers on their iPad.
The typical iPad owner who responded to the survey was a 48-year-old man with a B.A. earning more than $100,000 a year who bought his iPad within two months of its release.
Other Smart Phones & Tablet Computers
Although the survey was focused on the iPad and probably funded by Apple (we do not know that), these results can most likely be extrapolated to other smart phone users and smart device users. If this is correct, then more and more people are forsaking the printed word and moving to the electronic word for all of their information needs.
A simple observation of people riding the bus to and from work shows that over half of the people on the bus that I ride are busy using their smart phones, a few are using iPads to keep up with their emails as well as browse various information sources. This is the beginning of a general trend that is catching on in the markets.
Newspapers and magazines need to and many have been re-inventing themselves. They are creating apps for these smart devices that make it easier to get their message out to their readers and most important display advertising as well which earns them funds to support their business.
Lets continue to watch this new emerging segment of the electronic industry as well as the old standard to see were they both end up! Comments on the survey as well as our opinion are welcome.
For more info on the Apple iPad, click here.