A few weeks ago while shopping and running a few other errands, my wife was approached by a salesman for the local newspaper. She decided to buy a weekend subscription, from the guy. My first guess was that this guy was an incredible salesman. From her description though, it sounded more like this guy was desperate to meet his quota. I think most print sales guys are feeling the pinch. They’re selling something fewer and fewer people want or need.
Whenever I’m traveling out of town, I still grab a USA Today out of habit from the hotel I’m staying at, but rarely do I get a chance to do more than scan the pages. I really think it’s the smell of newspaper print that lures me to grab a copy.
I’m a grazer as this article suggests, and like most Generation Xers out there, I primarily get my news online. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of business and political blogs. There’s Podcasts and Ustream and Google News. There’s smartphones and cool new devices like the Kindle
Google news allows me to customize my news settings with whatever specific categories I want to read each day. All I have to do is log on and click “Edit this page” and then start “adding new categories” that I’m interested in.
Print media had better start seeing the handwriting on the wall. Using desperate salesmen to push a stale product is not a strategy for long term survival.
