The railroads fell victim to a classic example of forgetting which business you're in: Failing to see themselves as transport companies, they were out-competed by trucking companies who saw that their business was not trucks, but transportation.
The same thing could happen to the newspaper industry, according to Roger Fidler, director of new media at Knight Ridder, a huge newspaper chain based in Miami. "If we don't do more R&D, we will lose our industry," Fidler said.
In an extremely unusual move for the stodgy newspaper business, Knight Ridder executives last fall invested a goodly chunk of cash (rumors put the figure in the millions) to create the Knight Ridder Information Design Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., the industry's first research and development skunkworks charged with designing the information products of the future.
Fidler, who is writing a book about change in media (Mediamorphosis, due out this spring), said his lab will focus on innovative ways to deliver the information commonly found in newspapers. Fidler has already gained a measure of fame with a prototype "tablet newspaper," a clipboard-like device that presents the news not as static print on paper, but as an interactive, digital computer file delivered each morning via your cable hookup or telephone line. Other possible projects are news interfaces for personal digital assistants like Apple's forthcoming Newton.
Like Xerox PARC or the Bellcore research consortium, the Knight Ridder Information Design Laboratory will be a center for nurturing ideas. A separate Knight Ridder unit will then market them.
Even though the newspaper industry hasn't changed its delivery vehicle for centuries, the idea seems to be catching on. "I've been getting calls from all the newspaper groups," Fidler said. "They all want to know if they can work with us."
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Yeah, but will it improve the food? Get yer seat-back service here!
