Microsoft's Ballmer: Predicts end of print newspapers and magazines by 2018

Maybe they'll have the bugs worked out of Windows Vista by then. [/non sequitur]

 

I mean, it's sort of funny today. My son will stay up all night basically playing Xbox Live with friends that are in various parts of the world, and yet I can't sit there in front of the TV and have the same kind of a social interaction around my favorite basketball game or golf match

well, dude, some folks just want to watch the action live, not interact with it.. i think that will always be the case.... he's probably sort of right and wrong.. many things will go internet only.. but i think there will always be some sort of print media, especially nationally.. and i think after newspapers as we know them combust, there will be some other print form in their place, eventually

 

Should we be listening to this man?

 

Even more damning is this clip:

 

That was about as forced as when people over 19 years old greet each other with fist bumps.

 

See there.
I told you that you shouldn't be ragging on Singleton, didn't I?

 

His timeline might be skewed, but his premise isn't.
Electronic delivery eliminates the biggest costs - printing and delivery.
Imagine, no dead trees, no trucks, etc.

Now imagine a "newspaper" delivered to your handheld.

Too small to read? Imagine a tiny screen that goes in front of your eye that scales the view to make it seem as large as a newspaper. (the kind of screen that flips down in front of the eyes of military pilots. The technology is already there.)

Seem fantastical? Who would have imagined the internet being what it is merely 20 years ago?

10 years is a LOOOOONNNNNNG time

 

Print newspapers are dinosaurs.

But every time I go to Borders there are more and more and more magazines.

They seem considerably less dead than newspapers these days.

Of course, that's highly unscientific.

 

In 1998, if you told me about digital cameras, Tivo, GPS, what the internet would look like, Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, HD TV, MP3 players, Netflix and all the other technology we take for granted today, I would have given you the "floating city of New Chicago line."

This guy could very easily be right or he could be wrong.

What I know is that we have no idea what we will be using in 10 years.

 

The survival rate for new magazines is about 40 percent.

 

I understand what the guy means when he is talking about things becoming more interactive, but I was taking a grad class 12 years ago and one of the things the class covered was the future of the media.
The same prediction that print would be dead was made then. That the movie theaters would close because people would watch them at home. Magazines would mostly be literary journals, read by a few. Everything would be on the internet or some sort on the TV screen cable system.
And it still hasn't happened yet.