New technology may mean the revival of print, and new opportunities for marketing.
When you think about going green, the obvious route is to go digital.
While there are some real basics like reducing your use of internal printing, improving the state of your database, and transitioning as many of your customers to email as possible, there are some interesting products that are starting to emerge which may well provide some answers to the reduction in our worldwide paper consumption.
Electronic paper, also known as e-paper, is an interesting technology development that may both revolutionise and save the print media industry.
E-paper is designed to function in a way that is very similar to real paper. It bends like real paper, reflects light like real paper, and requires almost no power to run. Tactically, it delivers the same experience (i.e. it can be rolled up, put under your arm and read on the train).The digital flip side is that you only buy it once and it can be updated electronically and can be reused over and over again. Sound too good to be true? Not really.
Typically, e-paper uses a technology that suspends electronically charged particles (digital ink) between two surfaces, utilising electrical currents to manipulate the particles and present a readable image on the paper.
There are a couple of flavours of e-paper however the most popular system, is the ‘electrophoretic’ or ‘EPD’ display. The basic principle of this display is quite simple, It is made up of millions of tiny microcapsules, each containing positively charged white capsules and negatively charged black capsules. These capsules are dispersed across any surface. By applying an electrical current you can move the microcapsules around to arrange the white and the black to present an image to the viewer. To date, this has primarily been on flexible plastic film that is then laminated to a layer of circuitry.
Once the particles are rearranged, they stay there so e-paper is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without needing power to maintain it.
Although, we still have quite a way to go before the cost and distribution of this technology is massmarket, the potential is certainly there. E-paper has the advantage of being eco-friendly, but is capable of delivering a similar user experience to real paper.
Already e-paper has been utilised for ebooks, Sony releasing multiple versions of their e-paper reader. The Amazon Kindle (another e-paper like device) enables wireless connectivity that allows users to access content directly from anywhere they can get a wireless connection.
Perhaps more interestingly, some mainstream newspapers are already starting to experiment with this technology. French daily Les Echos announced the official launch of an electronic version of the paper on a subscription basis. The Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad has also started distributing their paper for the iRexiLiad reader.
Other e-paper applications get more interesting when you when connect them to RFID enabling easy updates to previously static displays. For example, imagine epaper in retail point of sale displays that can update pricing and other promotional information automatically without costly reprinting.
The big issue at this stage is the lack of color. There are a growing number of projects researching color e-paper displays, however it is still early days.
These products are not readily available in Asian markets yet, however, new research and products enter the market almost daily. This is a seriously interesting space to watch, and when I hear newspapers talk about how print is not dead, I can not help but wonder, perhaps they need to think about the future of the planet and how they might evolve into a new digital form of deployment in order to do their bit to save it.
Jenny Williams is the principal of Ideagarden Consulting.