Our Newspaper Extinction Timeline that we launched last week refers to news-on-dead-tree-paper. One of the fundamental dynamics that is driving this shift is the rise of digital paper that has almost all the qualities of print, as well as the advantages of digital. I wrote about the transformative power of e-paper in 2005, and things are pretty much on track from the snapshot I provided five years ago.

E Ink, which leads the industry, provides the screens for the Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader. The advantages of digital paper over traditional computer screens include extremely low power requirements, only using power when the screen is changed, and passive screens that can be read in any ambient light, just as real paper. Remaining deficiencies include lack of color, and the inability to show high-quality video. Rollable digital paper has existed for some years though still needs further development.

However color digital paper is now in the commercial space with the launch of E Ink’s Color ePaper Triton, as shown in this video (via Akihabara News and Engadget).

E Ink Triton Imaging Film from E Ink Corporation on Vimeo.

The first device announced with this color digital paper is a 10″ digital book reader from Hanvon.

Yes there is certainly a lot further to go with the development of digital paper, however the pace we see this progressing in coming years is a key element in how we believe news consumption will shift from dead trees to digital devices.

It would be fair to say that my Newspaper Extinction Timeline, released on Monday, has stirred up some controversy.

A partial list of media coverage I have seen so far is at the bottom – I am doing a stack of interviews today and tomorrow so I know there is more to come.

Reactions to the timeline has varied from taking the forecasts at face value, to more commonly scepticism at the pace of change I suggest, to a handful describing it as “complete rubbish”.

It’s worth providing a little background to why I have created the timeline. Given that the future is uncertain, I long believed that it was not appropriate to make specific prognostications. I thought (and still do) that scenario planning was the best way to help people understand the scope of uncertainty in the future, and to prepare effectively.

However in more recent years I have found that being more specific helps to focus people’s minds. If they think the forecast may be right, then there is something very concrete that they have to think through and work out how best to respond. If they disagree, then they need to think through why they think the forecast is wrong, helping to crystallize their own thinking.

The esteemed Roy Greenslade of the Guardian has written about the newspaper timeline two days in a row now, first discussing the forecasts and anticipating “inevitable brickbats” for me, then covering some of the responses to my timeline.

I am delighted that Roy picked up on what is exactly the kind of response to my timeline that I was looking for, from Earl Wilkinson of International Newspaper Marketing Association, who wrote a thoughtful piece about the timeline, excerpted here:

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[UPDATE December 20, 2017: Read a review of the Newspaper Extinction Timeline 7 years after it was published]
Back in August [2010] I predicted that newspapers in their current form will be irrelevant in Australia in 2022. That received significant international attention including from The Australian, The Guardian, Editor & Publisher (which called me the ‘Wizard of Aussie’) and many others.

Part of the point I wanted to make was that this date is different for every country. As such I have created a Newspaper Extinction Timeline that maps out the wide diversity in how quickly we can expect newspapers to remain significant around the world. First out is USA in 2017, followed by UK and Iceland in 2019 and Canada and Norway in 2020. In many countries newspapers will survive the year 2040.

The Australian has again covered this in a story title Deadline for newspapers as digital publications rise. There may be some more coverage in coming days.

Click on image to download full framework

The second page of the framework explains both the global and national drivers leading to the wide disparity in how quickly newspapers will move on, and provides some notes to the framework.

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