The Hindu's E-Paper: Better Late Than Never

The Hindu and it's sister publication Business Line are finally joining the e-paper family, which currently includes most of the Indian MSM. New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, Deccan Herald, Indian Express, Financial Express, Economic Times, Times of India, Dinamalar, Dinakaran and Tamizh Murasu already offer their content in the e-paper format.

Those who prefer to read their newspaper in the same format as the printed one would definitely take to the e-paper format. The slow navigation and the irksome free registration are the main factors which work against the acceptance of the e-paper. The press release says that there will be no access fee for the e-paper, atleast for the moment. So far, none of the Indian MSM have started charging users for reading the e-paper. Since most of the online news is available for free, I don't think any of the Indian media establishments can hope to make money through the e-paper. Indian magazines like India Today, Business Today, Vikatan and Thuglak charge users for accessing content online, but it is not clear whether they are really making sizeable money through this.

With The Hindu offering city specific e-papers, would we get to read supplements like Downtown, which are currently available only to the readers of the print edition? The Hindu should really think of integrating the interface and registration of the various e-papers offered by the various publications under The Hindu banner. Under the current structure, The Hindu and Business Line have separate registration / login screens. This creates some discomfort as the user would need to create multiple user accounts to access content from the different publications.