A couple of weeks ago, I finally succumbed to the Star Tribune’s eEdition come-on. I already pay full price for a print subscription, but the yearly add-on was so cheap — $5 once you cashed in a $10 gas card — that I figured why not. As a PiPress E-Edition subscriber for almost two years (they don’t deliver to my part of Minneapolis), it’s a good time for a side-by-side review.
First, yeah, on some level eEditions suck, combining all the dynamism of print with the readability of a website. The visual challenge is huge: An unfolded “paper” Strib has as much real estate as a 32-inch monitor. Even a single page is 24 inches diagonal; you may have a desktop screen that big, but you’re screwed on a laptop — and oh yeah, a paper is oriented vertically while most monitors are horizontal.
And when the Great IPad Revolution comes, these things may be even dorkier than they seem now.
Then again, eEdition use is climbing — the PiPress now counts up to 47,000 per weekday, and the Strib is at 25,000. True, e-papers are often a print subscription throw-in, or foisted off on schools, and the Strib numbers are a bit inflated because they dragooned their staff e-ward after ending print distribution in the newsroom.
For potential subscribers, cost is key, obviously, and it matters a lot if you already pay for print. As the Strib example shows, a year’s worth of eEditions can a print subscriber cost less than a movie ticket; the same is true of the PiPress. For non-subscribers, the list price of a 365-day PiPress subscription is $58.50; the Strib, $104, which is about half the print price. But I’ll bet you can find a better deal if you ask.
Advantages
So why even consider them? Three basic reasons.
First, newspaper layouts still rock. We all know what link-laden, ad-heavy cacophony the Strib’s home page is; the PiPress’s, on the other hand, is stultifyingly dull. Print is where stories and photos pop, where headlines catch your eye, where serendipity has been honed. Even if an e-edition is only methadone to print addicts, it’s better than going cold turkey.
Second is convenience. It’s just plain nice to “see” the paper no matter where you are (as long as there’s an Internet connection). It’s also nice when the carrier doesn’t get there before breakfast, though I don’t want to oversell this — the PiPress promises “delivery” by 6 a.m., the Strib 5:30 a.m. It shouldn’t take that long, considering newsrooms sent PDFs to their printers in the wee hours.
Third is search. And while eEditions are static PDFs, they do offer web-like keyword print-edition searching. It’s not as good as it could be; the PiPress’ only go back 30 days (though that’s two weeks longer than the free online archives) and the Strib’s is a mere 14 days.
Still, if you’re trying to find a print version of a story, the e-subscription is very handy. Many more Twin Citians read their papers on pulp than online, and I find it helpful to search the version most people see.
And the PiPress offers one archiving feature I love: you can look at any print replica going back to November 2007. (I’m badgering Strib digital boss Jason Erdahl for a similar feature.) PiPress circulation V.P. Andrew Mok says e-subscribers will soon get access to historic papers — the week of Lincoln’s assassination, the Titanic sinking, etc.
Reading stories
The two dailies rely on different e-paper platforms that, to a certain extent, mirror their web personalities. The Strib’s Olive platform is slicker but less intuitive; the PiPress’s Technavia is utilitarian but more efficient.
On either platform, it’s easy to see layout, headlines and photos in the full-page view. I can also read subheads on my desktop, but not my 15-inch MacBook Pro. Story text? As George H.W. Bush once said, “Not gonna happen.”
Reading stories reveals a key difference between the papers’ approach. The PiPress’ is straightforward — in the single-page view (you can also look at a double-page layout), click anywhere on the story and text automatically appears in a right-hand frame. It’s not all that pretty — if the story jumps to an inside page, the photos, credits and cutlines break up the text — but it’s obvious, quick, and I’m used to the quirk. You double-click or hit a menu button to see a zoomed-in version of the page element in the right-hand frame.
Reading a Strib e-story demands a bit more. A single click zooms in and zooms out. The Strib’s zoom-in annoys me because it doesn’t auto-size to the story borders. This pushes you toward double-clicking, which will display the text cleanly with no breaks — but in a pop-up window you have to close; inefficient.
If you want to read everything without frames and pop ups, you can simply make the page as wide as your screen. This is obvious for the Strib (menu button), not so for the PiPress (a series of double-clicks). Of course, maximizing width means you can’t see the full page length; I only get a third of a PiPress page, which all but rules out this approach. The Strib’s is better; about 40 percent of a page, though on a laptop, the text is on the edge of being too small. I still chose the pop-up option more frequently.
(One other Strib bug if you’re a MacBook user; two-finger scrolling is jerky; for precision, you have to hold down the click button, or use Olive’s kludgy scroll bar.)
I know this all sounds kind of dreadful, but even if eEditions only provide 25 percent of print’s reading pleasure and 50 percent of the serendipity, I wind up reading 80 percent of the stories I do in print, in far less time.
Which edition?
Both papers produce zoned print editions where stories and emphasis change depending on where you are in the Twin Cities. The PiPress’ eEdition is the St. Paul final. The Strib offers you all five zones in each day’s e-copy. I found the repetition annoying to scroll through until Erdahl explained there’s a table of contents on the second tab in a left-frame. Again, not intuitive, but once I knew about it, problem solved — and it’s sometimes interesting to see the zoned differences.
When you’re looking for a specific section, the PiPress drop-down menus are easier to use. Both papers offer tables of contents that jump you to a specific story; the Strib’s include the first several words of each story.
Bells and whistles
Both papers offer translations, using Google Translate. That means the translations are only as reliable as Google Translate ever is.
Some links within stories are hot — for example, you can email reporters with one click — but links in display ads are not.
E-subscribers get an email each day alerting them when the issue is “live.” I like the PiPress’ because it highlights the top three stories on the front page; Erdahl says the Strib is considering similar distinctiveness.
By the way, the eEditions don’t just allow publishers to double-dip in print layout work their staffs have already done; they provide a web-side double-dip too.
The Strib tries to give you some web timeliness by providing breaking news links in a left-side frame. They also slide a web ad in a right-side frame; thankfully, it looks like they ditched a horizontal banner that made it even harder to read a vertical page.
The eEdition also helps web stats; Erdahl says 1.7 percent of the Strib’s page views in January came from eEdition clicks; that represents 1.7 million page views that month.
However, I’m told that back in the day the women had a lounging sofa in their third floor loo.
No fair John O’Sullivan, the women’s restrooms are lacking in this interesting feature. Truthfully, I guess I’m kind of glad about that.
Thanks for the review, David. I had been wavering on whether or not it was worth supplementing my Strib print edition with the eEdition (not likely now).
I’ll stick to what I grew up with: The free website, made better, cleaner, and virus-free with AdBlock Plus. Print will die off with the generation that loves print.
Lots of good info there, Dave. Thanx much.You answered a lot of questions that I had. Despite the almost-free price of the product, I’m still undecided. I do like the fact that through this vehicle, the papers are able to maintain their institutional personalities.
The Strib doesn’t distribute papers in its own newsroom? UNBELIEVABLE! Do they have toilet paper in the bathrooms, or do reporters use an e-edition for that, too?
I wonder at what point we will cease to refer to the StarTribune as a newspaper. I just don’t get this fascination with paper.
PDF is a document format. The concept of the document is a relic of paper. The only advantage it has is that people are used to how a document’s real estate is best used. Why not take those lessons and move them to the digital world?
How about a decent StarTribune app/website for my iPhone? How about the same quality in layout and photos on the web as in the paper version?
I’d pay for that.
In response to Jason about the bathrooms at the Strib – here’s a funny tidbit I learned about the place when I worked there last year: All of the bathroom stalls have a rack in them for a newspaper to be held. Papers aren’t put there automatically, but often times you’ll find a paper in the bathroom stall that was left by the last guy. A little icky, but also kind of cool.
For people who want to use an eEdition but don’t want to pay for it, check out The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA) at http://cedarrapidsgazette.ussrv06.newsmemory.com/index.php or the Cook County News-Herald (Grand Marais weekly) at http://www.cookcountynews-herald.com/.
I have to agree with the earlier comment regarding layout of the website. I used to visit the Strib website a few times a day but gave up because I was never finding anything I wanted to read. Funny thing is, everytime I pick up a printed paper, I find plenty I want to read. The website has too many ads, promos, special links, lists, etc. and not enough emphasis on the actual news.
There is a fainting couch in the ladies lounge on 4, so that we ladies of delicate ears can go have a rest if we’re overcome by the salty language coming from the newsroom.
I too started out with the $14.95 Star Tribune offer to print subscribers and $10 gas card when the eEdition was computer based only. Still, with all its foibles, having a print facsimile just felt more at home especially when on the road and out of town. It just gives you a better connect to home than a web site.
When it came out on the iPad in October I switched almost exclusively to that format. With the iPad you download the edition and it is yours for as long as you want it. In the portrait mode you can almost read the paper without zooming in though it is kind of a pain. Tapping on an article brings up a separate formatted window that is easy to read the whole article. You can make an article a “favorite” which is like bookmarking it so you can go back to it at a future date as long as you don’t delete the whole edition. I much prefer the iPad edition over the computer edition.
One thing I’ve discovered is I tend to read more of the paper using the eEdition.
I’ve read the Star Tribune all over the United States and on three other continents (Europe, Africa and Asia) so far. No matter what you say, the newspaper print format in electronic format keeps your continuity to home through the small nuances of the ads, all the news, the obits and the comics as you normally read them. You are less disoriented when returning home in not missing all the news. You just can’t do that with the web page version.