The war of atoms and bits

There’s a war going on that you seldom hear about or read about, but it may change how you hear and read about everything in the future. It’s the war of atoms vs. bits.

I was searching the web for news about Hawaii and came across the Hawaii Tribune Herald’s web site. The Tribune-Herald newspaper covers Hilo and Kona on the Big Island.

Just like the Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin on Oahu, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald sells newspapers. You buy the atoms which make up the paper. Advertisers buy ad space in the newspaper, readers buy the newspaper to read the news and the ads. It’s the circle of newspaper life.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald, unlike the Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin, asks internet users to register with the newspaper before they allow you to read the news (and advertisements) on their newspaper web site. It doesn’t cost anything to register other than some effort to come up with a unique Member ID (thereby becoming a ‘member’ of the Herald-Tribune, with whatever benefits may ensue), a password, a valid email address, a zip code, and a year of birth. If you’re under 13 you can’t register with the Tribune Herald’s web site.

The question has to be asked. Why? The Herald-Tribune says the benefits of registration include the opportunity to read the entire Tribune-Herald web site. That part should be obvious since it’s a requirement. But why does the newspaper require readers to register?

Other than allowing internet users to read the newspaper online, what benefit is there to the reader who registers?

Many newspapers have yet to understand how to use their internet editions because they’re stuck in the ‘newspaper business’ instead of being sources for news. The ‘newspaper business’ makes money by selling atoms which give access to the news. It’s big money. It’s been that way for a few hundred years.

For the most part, an internet newspaper doesn’t have any atoms to sell, what with the internet being made up mostly of electricity and bits and bytes. How does a newspaper make money with an internet version of the newspaper? Can they charge internet readers 50-cents a day, or a monthly subscription fee? That business model hasn’t worked too well on the internet, where pretty much everything you read is free (except for access to the internet).

It’s advertising that supports the ancient newspaper business model. Newspapers charge a bundle for the ads, distributed to readers in atom form. Unfortunately, newspapers cannot make as much money selling ads on their internet web sites, so the bit form of the newspaper suffers like an ugly stepchild.

Interestingly, readership of most internet newspapers has increased over the past decade, while readership of the physical newspaper, made up of atoms, has remained stagnant or dropped.

Atoms vs. bits. Which one will win the war?