What a silly question! Yeah, do you still read hard copy newspapers these days? Or you no longer read hard copy newspapers. Or you only read online newspapers. Or you read both hard copy newspapers and online newspapers.
Whatever your answer is just your personal choice. However, it must be noted that in this internet era online newspapers or online news are gaining momentum all over the world and it is becoming a trend in Malaysia as well. Most traditional newspapers are now having their online version or some even customized for mobile users using smartphones or PDAs.
Three ways of reading hard copy newspapers online
- Go straight to their web site using your PC or mobile phone
- Subscribe to their RSS feeds and read using a feed reader (either in PC or mobile phone)
- Follow the newspapers online using Twitter
What online news do I read?
Practically I read all local (Malaysian) newspapers online, some foreign news like CNN, BBC, ST (from Singapore), Time, AP, Channel News Asia, Bloomberg, USA Today, Aljazeera, Google news, Yahoo news, etc.
How I do it in iPhone?
Here I am going to show you the easiest ways to read online news is to download individual newspapers’ application into your smartphone (in my case iPhone) and using a RSS reader.
Malaysian newspapers that have special mobile applications are Malaysiakini called Mobilekini in 4 languages English, Chinese, Bahasa Malaysia and Tamil), Sin Chew (Mandarin version), The Malaysian Reserve (finance news), Merdeka Review (Mandarin version only), Bernama News (discontinued), TheFreeMedia (Mandarin version). Screen shots are below:-
It is funny that Malaysiakini charges a minimum fee of RM150 (standard package) or RM450 (premium package) for their English version online news to be read in PC BUT they are giving iPhone users FREE viewing of its English version in Mobilekini! So please grab this while it still last.
You can just go to App Store or iTunes to search for above applications and install directly to your iPhone. These applications are all developed by the newspapers themselves and all are standalone with their own news only.
The other method which I use is to download a FREE RSS Reader to capture all the news feed from whatever newspapers which provide RSS feeds.
How do you add the news feeds in the FREE RSS Reader?
1. Click the add (+) sign on top left corner.
2. Add the feed by either entering the feed URL (if you know the exact address) or simply by entering the starting address of the newspapers website as shown in the screen shot below. If there is any feed available in the website, it will be captured by the application and click “Done”.
3. You may also import from Google reader, Bloglines or Newsgator.
My two cents
Of course some newspapers will charge you some a small fee for their mobile version of breaking news delivered to your mobile phone by SMS, I would rather not pay as I could easily open the website on a PC or a mobile phone though the viewing could be a bit troublesome.
I still read hard copy newspapers even though I am heavily into reading using RSS reader or using their own applications because not all articles in the hard copy newspapers are available in the e-version or mobile version. Sometimes you may like to physically touch and flip the newspapers page by page.
But I am not sure will there be any more hard copy newspapers in say 10 or 20 years time. What do you think?
Tags: Aljazeera, BBC, Bernama, Channel News Asia, CNN, free, internet, iphone, Malaysia, Malaysiakini, mobile, Mobilekini, newspapers, online, phones, reader, RSS, Sin Chew, smartphone, sms, ST
