First the L.A. Times, now the oldest newspaper on the world gives up the print for the digital age:
For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world’s oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace. The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden’s Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. It’s a fate, many ink-stained writers and readers fear, that may await many of the world’s most venerable journals.
At some point in time, you wonder whether newsprint will go the way of parchment… and what happens then to the ideas and thoughts of everything you’ve ever put online? One bad server, one faulty keystroke, and the histoy of the last 10 years is gone.
I read somewhere that if the U.S. Constitution had been printed on laserjet, in 50 years it would no longer be in existence. Both the ink and the paper would eventually degrade over time. E-mails and personal correspondence is even more fragile, especially if you consider how many e-mails you have archived from previous years (if at all).
The end of an age is at hand. Of course, digital books were supposed to be all the rage as if we were in Star Trek or something, but there’s something to a good hardcover book whose novelty can’t be replaced.
Check out the new Post-och website. Not exactly the worlds greatest, but certainly not the worst.