Fast Company has an article in their December 2005 print edition (and website) entitled Is Print Dead (links below).

This is a fascinating debate between two editors. One is involved in print; the other used to be but is now a blogger. I've heard it said that people asked the same question about print when the radio was invented, and then again when TV was invented - and probably when the Internet went public. But of course, the difference is that you cannot search for content via a radio or TV set.

I'm a lover of the printed word, and a former editor and publisher. I enjoy the feel of printed matter. If I am sitting on a bus, I like reading a novel or a magazine. If I'm reading a textbook, I search for content from the CD-Rom version first, but then switch over to the print edition when I know where to look. On the other hand, maybe it's a sign of my age, but I have a hard time reading a lot of content in digital form. By that I mean ebooks that have no print edition. [I'm sorry but I don't want to print out hundreds of pages off my printer all in one go.]

What I find I have to do is read the content piecemeal, a little per day, or my eyes bug out. This is not true of print, at least for me. I can speed read print, yet cannot do so online. Why not? Because decades-old studies show that serif fonts like the Times Roman font can be speed read, whereas san serif fonts like Helvetica and Verdana - which make up the bulk of websites - cannot be.

You're probably wondering if e-ink publications on bendable, paper-thin electronic displays will make a difference. I think that they may satisfy the tactile senses, but since san serif fonts are aesthetically more pleasing for electronic text, the speed-reading aspect will not be satisfied.

Nevertheless, none of this means that future generations will see or care about print. And with electronic delivery of content not slowing down anytime soon, RSS/ Atom syndication is quite likely to become the prominent and predominant method.

Links: Fast Company - Is Print Doomed?

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://www.chameleonintegration.com/

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