December 20, 2003

Apple’s come a long way, so can we

Apple has come a long way from pre­dic­tions of doom and gloom.

One sign of this struck me when I hit The Wash­ing­ton Post‘s site today. They have a small teaser ad (that doesn’t ani­mate, jump, flip, split, twirl or any­thing and I noticed it — pay atten­tion ad design­ers) for their “PC Buyer’s Guide.”

The thing is, the image is of an Apple iMac.

Apple is now an icon for PC coverage.

What­ever the company’s faults may be they have spirit and take risks. And for that, they’ve been rewarded with a suc­cess­full busi­ness, (it’s about high-​margin hard­ware sales not market pen­e­tra­tion), grow­ing legions of fans, and numer­ous awards.

Every­one says the end of news­pa­pers is near. We’re anti­quated, we can’t do any­thing right. We’ve got qual­ity issues and a dwin­dling audience.

They said the same thing about Apple.

So as 2003 quickly fades away, I chal­lenge the news­pa­per indus­try — let’s be Apple, not Dell.

Let’s take risks — do more with our Web sites, explore new distriubtion and advertising models, let’s innovate, not duplicate.

Let’s focus on quality — sure Britney Spears, Bennifer, and Kournikova will get you one-off sales and clicks, but let’s not commoditize news. Our readers, our advertisers, our communities, our nation deserves better than that. Let’s break news, get in-depth, provide context. Anyone can produce cheap news (and anyone can make cheap computers). Let’s make quality our value proposition and our product differential.

Let’s make money, the right way — Apple isn’t a charity, and neither is the news business. But no one said being a good company and making money are mutually exclusive. If we produce quality, innovative products and cultivate a loyal following of readers, we can serve them well, make money and in turn, make a better product and a better community.

Filed under: Business,Management,Technology

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