Michael's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘print’

Monthly Computer Pals Meeting

Last week I was invited to talk at the monthly Computer Pals meeting and I met a group of great people that are all interested in learning about digital technology. Computer Pals is a club of seniors on Sydney’s North Shore, they have over 400 members and a waiting list of more than 100.

Computer Pals conduct courses on topics such as using PCs, the use of popular software packages, connecting and communicating via the internet. They organise talks on technical topics once a month.

I was invited to talk about recent developments in print, recent investments into big presses as well as new technologies such as digital printing and ink jet presses. I included a short printer’s winge about dropping volumes in print, technology driven changes and threats from online technologies.

All wired up and talking at the Computer Pals

The audience was great, there were many questions and nobody fell asleep (not just here an important indicator on the quality and suitability of the talk). Almost everyone in the audience had some sort of connections to printing or even the printing industry, either through having worked in it themselves or through relatives.

An interesting topic was the development of digital book printing and the fact that it has become very affordable to self publish and get your own book printed at book shop quality, even at low quantities. Obviously many in the audience saw an opportunity and incentive to write and then produce their own book.

The Computer Pals definitely “got it”, they understand the need to keep learning new technologies and their applications. It was a real honour to talk at the club.

QR Codes are a popular type of two-dimensional barcode, which are also known as hardlinks or physical world hyperlinks. The quick readable (QR) barcodes can store a variety of text information, be read very fast and even upside down and can be scanned from a screen, a newspaper or magazine, flyer or even a billboard.

QR Codes store text, which can be:

• A website address
• A telephone number
• An SMS Message
• Contact Details (VCARD)
• A Google Map
• A Facebook or MySpace Profile

QR codes can be generated easily and read by scanners or camera equipped mobile phones. Many Nokias have the software built in, if you have an IPhone, you can download free QR barcode readers at the ITunes store.To generate qr codes you can use dedicated software or a number of free online tools, there is a list here.

QR codes can be placed in magazine ads or on outdoor billboards, pointing to further information about products. These hyperlinks on paper help integrating paper into the information and marketing media mix, they can be found on books, McDonalds packaging, pointing to information about your burger and there is even an example where codes on a cemetery point to information about people. Another very cool application is Starbuck’s loyalty IPhone app.

The code below is pointing to this post, if you have the software on your phone you can try it out:

Update: QR codes gaining popularity:

NYT: From Print to Phone to Web. And a Sale?

Some thoughts about high speed inkjet presses and their impact on print:

Inkjet presses are going to make a big difference in many digital and offset pressrooms to the point of being disruptive technology. They will bring a jump in in productivity and a substantial reduction in price for digital colour printing.

Presses available today are producing “good enough” quality, but not yet offset like quality.
However: There are samples from two manufacturers, Kodak an HP, that show that offset quality can be achieved. Key is the stock the press can print on, especially when thinking about offset replacement.

Inkjet technology will improve in output quality quickly as most RnD money seems to be devoted to this technology, and has been for a few years.

Inkjets have so far been mostly used in transactional printing, but now are moving into higher quality variable data and short run print including educational and trade publishing. This is a change for vendors, who need to satify a different set of requirements from printers compared to mailing houses and statement printers.

As more and more are sold and a wider range of models is introduced, Inkjet presses will substantially come down in pricing over the next few years.

Cost of consumables and service are not stable yet, different vendors have different costing models, factors are cap ex, service charge, cost of ink and in some cases print heads.

Printers (and suppliers) will need to re-think their pricing models with inkjets. Ink usage is a determining factor in cost per page/document, this may have been possible to be calculated in advance in transactional use, but will be much more difficult with jobbing and offset replacement work.

More info: There is a collection of links from the last few months covering articles about inkjet presses and manufacturers here.

Recent news about print and publishing included the (not so) news that print volumes are declining, Newspapers are vanishing, magazines are getting thinner or disappear, advertising revenues are suffering in a recession and are shifting online (and could you blame them? Measurable returns, pay for results, easier, cheaper and quicker production).

The future of paper books is not looking any more promising as E-Readers gain momentum and are fast becoming mainstream gadgets and then tools, even Opra’s Life has been changed by an ebook reader?

Books are not read anymore anyway, says Steve Jobs in a NYT interview,

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Espresso book machines are installed in bookshops to print books on demand and printers argue that they won’t replace whole digital print departments. Yet.

E-paper and e-ink are driving a whole range of applications, the Esquire cover was only a first stab, showing that the technology is mainstream ready.

Digital Natives are the ones to watch, because they grow up (not) using print without a long education through which print was so dominant, will they treat print as a niche product, a luxury item, books and magazines as not useful but pretty?

It’s obvious: Print is suffering, if not dead already. Other – formerly known as new – media have proven themselves and print is just not a preferred medium of communication any more. The US elections showed the niche use of print, the elections were won online, but everybody wanted a copy of the newspaper front page with the historic election result, several papers reprinted that edition.

Further volumes of offset print will change to print on demand, for manuals, books and even magazines. Returns and obsolescense are expensive, environmentally unsound and not sustainable in the longer run.

Print is not for fast, efficient information distribution, it cannot compete with online on efficiencies and soon the people at the receiving end will be satisfied with online  as opposed to print, if not happier, because it makes it so much easier for them to re-purpose.

Print is good for archival of special information. Coffee tables need books. However, if you think how many photos will often be viewed but never printed.

If you’re in print, now should be the time to re-think. Print will obviously not vanish that quickly - think CD manufacturers - but it willl change. It is important to question your perception of print’s relevance, always remembering that younger people may not inherit that attachment to printed newspapers and books that you may have.

So learning from the famous Canadian philosopher Wayne Gretzky, we’re thinking not where it is, but rather where the book will be.