New newspaper ideas

The newspaper industry is really starting to feel the full force of the technological revolution and a number of titles are scaling back off-line resources in favour of their online editions. For example, The New York Times recently announced that it was cutting back its stockmarket price tables because readers were accessing this type of information online.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has announced that it had hired Adrian Holovaty (creator of Chicagocrime.org) to develop “mashups” that combine Google maps with statistical information on crime rates in the local area.
This is undoubtedly one way to go. In the future, newspapers will have to make their conversations with readers more of a two-way street, which means opening up stories to comment and sharing credit with the co-creators of news and analysis. But it’s not all hi-tech in medialand. In the UK, Piers Morgan (ex editor of the Daily Mirror), is launching a new newspaper aimed at children aged 9 to 12. Columnists could include celebrities such as Jamie Oliver, Richard Branson and David Beckham. The idea isn’t new. In France, Play Bac Presse has published three newspapers aimed at kids since 1995. The idea could work in the US too, given that parents spend over US $3 billion on kids books and the fact that the top 10 kids magazines has a combined circulation of 15 million.