On-site device prints Tim Hortons coffee cup sleeves with Twitter news feeds

     In an ingenious rethinking of the way people consume news with coffee, ad agency Y&R Dubai has created ‘headline news’ cup sleeves for Canadian coffee franchise Tim Hortons and Gulf News, a daily English newspaper in the United Arab Emirates. The way the new system works is:  when a customer buys a cup of coffee, the barista places the sleeve into a special printer that prints the latest headline from the Gulf News Twitter account on it, along with a short URL and QR code.  So after reading the headline of the hour on their cup sleeve, customers can scan the QR code or type the URL into their mobile devices to access the full story.

     Thanks to Deborah Corn, Chief Operations Officer at U.S.-based PrintMediaCentr.com and founder of the 37,000+ member Print Production Professionals Group on LinkedIn, for bringing this news story to my attention via her post today.
http://printmediacentr.com/2012/06/ad-agency-rethinks-coffee-cup-sleeves-as-newspapers/

Rupert Murdoch launches world’s 1st iPad-only newspaper

Further to my 2-Nov-2010 post and true to Rupert Murdoch's word, his News Corporation has launched the world's 1st iPad-only newspaper. Called The Daily and led by Jesse Angelo, former Executive Director of the New York Post, another News Corporation property, the publication will cost 99 cents US a week or $39.99 USD for a year’s subscription.  In providing news coverage, The Daily intends to focus on in-depth editorial, more akin to a magazine's content than a newspaper's.  http://www.printaction.com/News/20110208-the-daily.html

World's 1st tablet newspaper coming 2 yr iPad soon?

Futurist Ross Dawson has resurrected the question of what will replace newspapers by predicting the extinction of newspapers as we know them in the U.S. by 2017 and Canada by 2020:  http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/11/02/u-s-newspapers-could-fade-in-seven-years-in-related-news-were-moving-to-mongolia/.  


Also recently, Sachin Kalbag, a columnist for India Today, logged an interesting reaction to octogenarian global media magnate Rupert Murdoch's plan to launch the world’s first newspaper for tablet computers: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/118309/COLUMNS/digital-ink-media-king-murdochs-newspaper-that-isnt.html. 


Earlier this year Murdoch was slammed for urging newspapers to charge for their on-line content: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/13/gordon-brown-paywalls.  Speculation has continued to mount as to whether Murdoch's vision for a tablet newspaper is feasible:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/203332/could_an_ipad_newspaper_from_news_corp_succeed.html.


Update on 15 Dec 2010:  The 5th annual North American newspaper preview survey from Toronto-based KubasPrimedia shows the newspaper industry is optimistic about 2011.  http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/media/article.jsp?content=20101201_150717_6048