Chester Spotlight was an Internet Trend Setter

I’ll never understood why so many newspaper publishers put their content on the web for free. Now, people have come to expect it.

I don’t like most newspaper websites. Either they don’t let you read all their articles, or they load their sites with so much stuff that it’s both hard to read and takes forever to load. 

When I had the Chester Spotlight paper going, people would ask me for my website address. I’d ask what they wanted to see on a website that wasn’t already in the paper. Usually, I got a blank stare.

Several people offered to build a website for me and I’d go screaming and hollering demanding that they convince me why I needed to have a website. Usually, I got a blank stare.

So, after much thought, I came up with the idea that the Chester Spotlight would have a simple website where people could see back issues of the paper. Not some articles, not partial articles, but the entire paper exactly as it was printed. The site is not pretty, but it served that single purpose well. 

On the site, I provided links of the exact PDF file that I sent to the guys who printed the Chester Spotlight. All you had to do was open the file and you were reading the same thing that was circulated on the street.  

The first PDF on the site is the July 6, 2007 issue, #14.  You can still find issues 14-45 at www.ChesterSpotlight.com (click Back Issues link). Sorry, I wasn’t creating PDFs before issue 14).

It took them 4 years to catch up with me, but I’m proud to say that I started a trend that the big boys have taken to another level. The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News are one of the first publishers to offer ‘digital images’ of their papers. 

Instead of having to download a PDF, they have a clever design that allows you to read the paper on your computer or mobile device just like your are reading the physical paper. Plus, you can do all kinds of fancy things with the articles like email, print, and have them read to you with a funky computer voice thingee.

They still have the messy Philly.com where they parse out articles for free, but the ‘digital image’ is a subscription service which cost much less than buying the paper on the news stand.

Their newest promotion is an Android Tablet for $99 with a two year subscription to their papers. Since I’m already enjoying the digital subscriptions, it was a no brainer to jump on that offer.

I received the Tablet last week and it does make reading the papers a tad easier than reading them on the smart phone. The wifi Tablet itself is cool, but it’s no iPad (which starts at $500). 

I believe that news delivery on the web will continue to grow. But for those of us who still enjoy newspapers, even if publishers move away from newsprint, I prefer to read them in a newspaper layout on a digital device. 

Websites like Delcotimes.com will soon become a thing of the past...I hope.