Hi, this is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com.  Welcome to another episode.  

A few little pieces of new that I found, this one I cut out of a Bloomberg, of what used to be Business Week, which is now Bloomberg Business Week.  “After a jam, Lexmark turns to services.”  And what was interesting to me was a little chart that was in the article that essentially shows pounds of copy paper per worker have declined 26% since 1999.  That in 1999, there was just under 150 pounds of copy paper per worker and that in 2010 it’s about – looks like about 100 pounds. 

Losing weight sometimes not good – 

And although it’s been declining, it seems to be leveling off at this state of the game, which is rather interesting.  According to the article, Lexmark is now starting to derive more revenue from managed print services.  This is something that’s being done by Xerox and Ricoh and other companies where they help you as an organization to reduce the amount of printing that you do, which is sort of interesting when you consider that companies doing it make printing equipment.  But they realize that there’s money to be made in the services. 

The only thing that I can think of is, that at some point in time you get the amount of print down to the absolute lowest level it can be at and then why does that company need you any more?  So not only will you not be selling managed print service, you probably won’t be selling printers either.  So, perhaps all the printer companies that do this should look for other sources of revenue.  You know, like food or bottled water, something like that.

Offset or inkjet water…discuss…

This one was from the Wall Street Journal, “Are eBooks worth the money?”  And, they have a whole batch of arguments about the price of the reader and the price of the book.  Their major complaint is that really, the price that they charge for eBooks is too high.  And they give a very good example of the fact that if you buy a Best Seller today, it’s $12.99 or so, whereas Amazon and other companies would like it to be closer to $7.00 or $8.00.  But this person uses the example, they bought the book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, it was $7.99 on the Kindle, but they bought it at Borders in hardcopy with a coupon for $5.68.  So they can discount hardcopy printed books, but the books that don’t have paper and ink and transportation, they can’t discount? 

So I agree that there’s a disconnect there and the publishers are probably going to lose some traction. 

The other interesting point was that many of the books that are being sold are the free ones.  Well, that’s an oxymoron.  They’re not being sold.  Many of the books being downloaded are the free ones.  The classics.  I find myself reading those books that in high school I had to read.  Now I want to read them.  It’s like, it’s the same list and the world has changed.  So, absolutely something has to happen in terms of eBook pricing before that market regains any traction. 

This is sort of related.  This is from UPI, and it’s about the fact that the Oxford English Dictionary is not going to be printed anymore.   That by the way, is the granddaddy of all dictionaries because its based upon the first time that word ever appeared in the English language and then all the times it was used after that and how the meanings may have changed. 

There’s a wonderful book about it by Simon Winchester called, The Meaning of Everything, about the development and production of the Oxford English Dictionary.  And there’s a companion book that he wrote, which I think is even better.  It’s called The Professor and the Madman, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  And he’s quoted in this article.  And he recently says, “Until six months ago, I was clinging to the idea that printed books would last forever.  Since the arrival of the iPad, I am wholly convinced otherwise.”  That’s very interesting by the way. 

I met Simon Winchester last year when he and his wife became members of the Museum of Printing.  And he’s a strong MacIntosh user.  And I can understand how you can look at the iPad and you say, “This is going to change the world.”  There’s no doubt about it.  There’s something about that machine – that device, and it is a machine too, that allows you to have information in totally different ways; with animation, with sound, with the text as well.  And it certainly does have some futuristic hold on our imaginations in terms of where we are going.  But it’s very sad because every day I’m finding another article about a magazine – there’s a magazine called Paste Magazine that just discontinued the printed version with the July issue.  They have a website and they’re not quite certain what they’re going to do next, but they say they’re going to develop their digital assets.  That’s what a lot of people are saying right now. 

I mean, Graphic Arts Monthly has gone out of business, they have not continued their website, but they say they are still selling the mailing list.  Well, the mailing list can’t get any better over time.  So my feeling is that as we move more and more into this digital age, it’s going to be very interesting to see the products that continue and the products that die away. 

Well, in any case, those are my opinions.  Take care. 

Next time…

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