Pete writes “Electronic paper and ink are on the way in Belgium, according to The Register
“Belgian daily De Tijd is to be distributed electronically in what is claimed to be the first complete solution for portable electronic reading and writing.
Available from April 2006, the Iliad platform allows for customised versions of an electronic reader that can be created for special markets.””
or will it?
That article misses some key information, specifically, will this “total solution” replace the printed newspaper or be an additional offering>
If the latter, well, quite a few magazines have been avaiable in “total solution” digital editions for some time now…just not very successful.
There’s a physical aspect to the broadsheet newspaper (don’t know if this Dutch paper is broadsheet) that’s awfully difficult to replicate in a digital reader that anyone would use. And, absolutely significantly, the display and other advertisers that actually pay for most of a newspaper’s costs and profits need some assurance that their ads will work as effectively in a digital world.
Not that it couldn’t happen, but announcement and success are two very different things…particularly where epaper (and ebooks and emagazines) are concerned.