Workinprint.com Blog- Personal News and Views on UK Printing and Packaging Jobs

Murdoch has pushed the button…

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:10:13 +0000

Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul

So Murdoch has gone ahead with his plans to charge for access to The Times website and it will go behind a paywall in June.

Rates have been divulged: £1 per day or £2 per week.

This seems rather simplistic to me.

I strongly believe that there is a revenue model in what newspapers provide and it can be better monetised. Obviously they face a collapse in traffic and search engine indexing but may be able to monetise the existing Times readership.

However it is my opinion people prefer to read comment in a newspaper when they have more time, most people consume bite size news during the day through lack of time and that you can get anywhere.

If all the newspapers pulled together it could work.

However I think it would work far more effectively as a micropayment system whereby money is deposited and small amounts are deducted based on usage. So you can read the first say 150 words of an article and pay to read the rest depending on article word count. This might be a fee in pence, say 2p-20p.

What would really make this work is if there was a common payment system for ALL NEWSPAPERS. The newspapers can decide the amounts that are deducted for each article. This could take the form of a Virtual Currency that people buy and can top up from one partnered place. However the logistics of getting all the newspapers to agree would probably never make this fly.

I am watching this with interest, kudos to Murdoch for being the first to have the balls to go and implement this at least it will answer one question that publishers have been thinking about for years.

Murdoch. End of days?

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:23:09 +0000

So Rupert Murdoch is planning to be the first mover in putting newspaper content behind a paywall. Well as Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter said today, “it’s like trying to put the genie back in the bottle”.

This means you will have to pay to read content on all of News International titles like The Times, Sunday Times, The Sun and News of the World.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDT_4Nor7Hw

For over a decade the public have benefited from this free up to the minute news and it has set a precedence and now it is expected, if they had charged for content from day one it might have been different.

The only way such a model could work is by a micro transaction pay model, whereby news is consumed on demand rather than a flat subscription. Let’s face it, all these titles are general news title with commentary, they are not specialist like The Wall Street Journal, I can certainly see people paying for content on that site.

If Mr Murdoch does make such a move, he is either very brave or misguided. Who knows once he makes the first move other titles will follow. Biz Stone is right, he should be devising a model that will make him a lot of money out of the huge traffic that these websites generate but coming from an old school background of print, it is sometimes hard to adjust and accept that people can get all that great journalistic content for free.

The simple fact remains, people will go elsewhere to get their news and the BBC remains their biggest threat.

This is a period of great change and we are witnessing the rebirth and death of many traditional mediums, what will come out at the end is anyones guess….

Job Satisfaction, Eighties vs Noughties

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:14:17 +0000

When I was an apprentice scanner operator/retoucher/planner (stripper) I used to get a great sense of achievement when finally producing a set of colour separations that were ready to go to plate making. In those days the job was highly skilled and you could earn good money, I remember scanner operators in the Eighties earning 70-90k a year in London.

It might take a whole day to make a double page spread of a magazine and a lot of expensive film intermediates such as masks.

Typically the process might consist of:

Scanning

Scale film transparencies to artwork from ad studio or publisher
Clean and mount transparencies onto scanner drum and load film into recording drum
Set up scanner by analysing pictures setting highlight and shadow detail
Scan and then unload film into chemical film processor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPdjqZo8XNA

Planning

Photograph artwork on large format vertical camera and process film through processor
Create masks by cutting with a scalpel
Use brushes and opaque paint to mask areas such as hair on backgrounds
Combine typesetting with separations
After perhaps some 50 sheets of contact film merge with colour separations to create a four colour set of master films

Proofing

Cromalins or matchprints made
If colours were not right, separations had to be chemically retouched using harzardous acids to etch away the size of the halftone dot
Re-proof

I’d have to say what we do now is so much faster.

Import pictures from digital camera
Combine with page layout using software such as InDesign or Quark Xpress
Output proofs straight to inkjet
Retouch photographs in photoshop on a home computer
Print separations from computer to metal printing plate ready for printing

All done in probably a 1/8 of the time, at a lot less cost (a scanner back in 1985 was well over £100,000 compared with one today at around £3,000 plus a huge drop in salaries as technology allowed unskilled labour into the industry) and with a huge reductions in the impact on the environment.

But the old way was a craft and a skill in an almost organic process, using a computer is a skill but you just can’t beat actually making something with your own hands, like carving a piece of wood and making a piece of furniture.

London Lite going, going…..gone?

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:59:10 +0000

I see the London Lite might be gone in the next few months, this is the second free sheet to finally throw in the towel if this proves to be true, Associated Newspapers have been losing a reported £10m a year even though they have a 400,000 circulation. The first to go was Murdoch’s London Paper a few months ago. This leaves the Metro and the recently free Evening Standard the only free titles in the capital.

I got very tired of reading The Metro, London Lite or London Paper, they all follow the same banal formula with bite size news and pictures of cute kittens, I only took it so I could read something on the train or the tube. In comparison The Evening Standard is a proper paper and they have not diminished its pages (amazingly) but made it free and with a 600,000 circulation now compared to London Lite’s 400,000. Ironic that both the London Lite, London Paper and Metro have heavily impacted the Evening Standard but it looks to me ‘what goes around come around’ and I can see The Evening Standard becoming the ultimate winner in this battle.

MyPantone-How it works on iPhone

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:16:42 +0000

This is cool 21st century application of the Pantone swatch book on iPhone, check out the video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=elSKJ_J29Nw

and if you have no clue how colours go together it even does that for you.

Just discovered EcoFont

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:31:54 +0000

If you want to use a lot less ink (especially on inkjet printers, I always seem to be paying the equivalent of a new printer each time I order new ink) try EcoFont, you can use it for your everyday printing.

You should also try to print 2 sides to every page (if you can work it out)

Ecofont

Printing Factory Closures Map

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:41:52 +0000

Here is a map showing recent print factory closures in the UK, sober reading!

Kindle: Will it really take off?

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:06:51 +0000

I have recently been mulling over purchasing a Kindle Reader. I already have an iPhone 3G which is quite a revolution, but it can be slow to load web sites when not in a WIFI area and at the end of the day looking at web sites on a relatively small screen only becomes a chore eventually.

However my interest in Kindle has been re-ignited recently when I heard that it was to be offered in the UK and with over 230,000 books and newspapers and magazines available to download it is another step closer to an e-paper society. I was especially interested to hear about the screen that is non-glare and can easily be read in sunlight, a big problem that has persisted with laptops.

Although still mainly with a US focus I can see this being a big seller, take a look here for the video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=98SvE2IcyxU

Newspapers are cautiously welcoming this as a new way to monetise newspaper content online as it has the same look and feel of a conventional newspaper.

Personally I can see it as another channel to consume media which will fulfill a niche in our ever busy lives, its especially attractive with its very long battery life and as my bag weighs heavy on my shoulder loaded with books I am considering a purchase of this device. But I do love my Sunday Times or Sunday Independent in bed of a Sunday morning, the last thing I want to do is look at a screen, like I do all day at work!

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Trader Media

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:50:02 +0000

I see that jobs are in jeopardy at the printing arm of Trader Media Group. This is another example of how classifieds are moving more and more to the Internet.

However as I learnt in my previous job running a large classifieds site, you cannot make the same kind of revenue online as you can selling a classifieds newspaper and this will ultimately see organisations such a Trader Media contract to bring itself to a point whereby the new online order becomes profitable.

Snow so funny!

admin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:19:43 +0000

My 22 month old son, having a bit of an accident in the snow!