Print or Digital–What’s Your Fix?

Digital Media is certainly becoming the top news destination for majority of professionals (especially those in the technology industry or those whose job profile involves dealing with IT) across the globe and more and more people are converting their daily news reading habits to switch to digital media in some way or the other. And technology news is widely read on digital media; in fact, most tech news is being read online, reveals a recent survey in Europe. The numbers might not be that big in India yet, but the trend is gradually shifting towards digital-there can be no doubt on that.

According to the 2013 annual technology market survey conducted by Eurocom Worldwide, online media remains the way for senior executives to source technology industry news, 78% of respondents say that they mainly get their technology news fix from online media. This is some way ahead of social media (42%).

However, what is good news for us (both professionally as well as readers) is that the third most popular source for accessing tech news is industry print journals (40%). 37% get technology news from national newspapers. A third access tech news through search.

"While online media is the main technology news channel, print media has held up remarkably well," says the survey. The Eurocom Worldwide survey finds that almost 70% of respondents read a print industry tech journal at least once a month and 40% do so at least once a week.

Improvements in the tablet reading experience combined with their rapid growth could well encourage more users to subscribe for content. However, it remains to be seen whether publishing specifically to tablets will be a winner for the traditional print media.

The challenge for online media, whether technology or general media, remains to turn all those eyeballs into revenue and profit. Anecdotal evidence from our peers around the world suggests that journalists in both online and print have to work harder and produce more with fewer resources.

83% of the survey respondents access digital news through laptop computers compared to 27% using traditional desktop computers. 61% access news through mobile phones. Since last year's survey there has been almost a doubling (from 16% last year to 30%) of those using tablet devices such as an iPad to read news, with tablets overtaking desktops for the first time in the survey.

While we at The DQ Week and DQ Channels are still delivering through both print and online media, please do write to me about how you want to read your news.

Rajneesh De

(rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in)