In the real world, it’s useful to dust off a paper from long ago and relive the contemporaneous issues of the day. But on the web, the online editions of major newspaper change several times a day. When they do, the experience shared by millions is lost and not easily reconstructed.
Online newspapers like the New York Times have been around now for ten years and this need to preserve and reconstruct the experience of a moment in time remains unfulfilled.
If newspapers see it as part of their mission to serve as a historical record, they will appreciate that the record it is not just the a database of articles, but how the articles are packaged and presented.
(This is an instance of how, in the transition to new technology, some needs get left behind. It’s also an instance of how the benefits of paper are perennially overlooked in the transition to online media. It doesn’t have to be this way, but avoiding it first requires appreciation for what is taken for granted, and compensation in the new system.)
Vision to steal
�ĢNewspapers: let the user recreate the experience of viewing the paper on any historical day, both hard-copy and online versions. Let the user step through changes made within a day, or over subsequent days and weeks to see how coverage of a story unfolded over time. This would let the papers squeeze more value out of their historic content, while providing a useful resource to readers and researchers. Businesswise, they might do it either out of the kindness of their hearts, or to make some change by encircling the historic front pages in advertising. Or they may provide such a service to promote the purchase of articles that require payment.
• Content management system (CMS) vendors: differentiate from their competition and provide reconstruction of the experience at any snapshot in time.
Questions for Readers
Which CMS’s are the most popular among online newspapers? Do any CMS’s provide this capability?
See also:
- Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you punch in a URL and see historic snapshots of it. Here is the NY Times on 9/11.
- Newseum.org has front pages of print newspapers on important historical days. [Update 2/6/06 courtesy David Cortright]
A good and valuable idea. http://www.memeorandum.com/ has made this a top-level feature in the UI. It hasn’t been around very long yet, but even a short history can be valuable for some scenarios.