G24 – a new era in newspaper publications

This week saw the launch of G24 – a PDF version of the Guardian that is updated throughout the day.

Here is the blurb:

G24 brings you the latest stories from the Guardian, Guardian Unlimited and the Observer – updated throughout the day. There are five pdfs to choose from: Top stories, World, Media, Business and Sport.

Let’s look at the advantages of a free PDF paper.

1. Newspaper saves on printing costs
2. Newspaper retains advertising costs
3. A printed version is easier to read than an online version (that’s my opinion anyway)
4. The paper will hopefully get more readers who:
   1. Who don’t want to be pay 70p and want a free paper
   2. Don’t like reading online for various readers
5. The PDF version can retain the iconic style of the Guardian’s print design more easily than a website can.
6. It can be updated as often as a website. So it’s even more topical than say an evening edition

The way forward?

I see this as a new era for newspapers and possibly the way forward that all other newspapers will follow. The Guardian has always been a forward thinker in terms of the web and provided the advertising revenues don’t drop – online versions of newspapers seem to be the way to go.

Increased Competition online

Once online, the newspapers have more competition than other newspapers; there’s also BBC.co.uk, Google news and many more websites that are better equipped at showing the latest news. Thankfully G24 has been created in recognition of this and is givng the consumer something slightly different again that they can’t get from competitors yet.