After the recent launch of Trinidad Express TV they have extended their features by prominently displaying their new E-paper distribution channel.

The e-Paper is a subscription based model and features access in monthly allotments at several price points.

I viewed the demo and even though it is flash based it does have some interesting features.

It appears to be a scanned copy of the actual copy sold .While this may be good if you are discussing a news story with someone who has a hard copy and direct them to the actual page and in the general direction, you have to also contend with the ads being placed on the pages.

While this may seem trivial, I am weary to purchase a monthly $15US ($90TT) subscription at a premium over the regular price and still have to thumb through the ads, especially the full page ones.

You can scroll through each page of the paper. Scrolling can be accomplished with your mouse to flip the pages or the navigation buttons to the top of the page. Doing these gives an “authentic” page flipping sound for those needing to hear the pages turn as they read.

You can zoom in to read the stories (or look at the ads) as the default is in full page mode. With the first zoom however, the type font is too small and on the second zoom the type font is blurry (try reading the comic strips). Flash based windows implemented this way are usually used to showcase products that when viewed and clicked on take to to product information pages and not for consistent text reading.

You can print a specific page to PDF but that function may only appeal to those who have been featured in the newspaper, or those doing research etc. For the core target market who I assume to be foreign nationals without access to a printed copy, the chance of them in either category is slim. The PDF function does help with the blurry zoom as you can print and adjust to the right size for easy readability if you so choose.

You can locate using either the thumbnail feature or the search box. The thumbnail feature was helpful in navigating around the ads (yes those again!!) but the search feature would not return any results for my attempts on common searches such as “TSTT” or “Manning”. I believe this may have something to do with the fact that its actual images and none if the text is indexed, a fact that should be apparent.

Generally this is a good effort even with its shortcomings and there is room for improvement such as indexed searching, ability to view the entire issue in PDF format and the ability to remove the flipping sound.

Even with these improvements I would hesitate to subscribe as I don’t see this E-paper providing any more value than the Online Express does. The online express even though in need of a redesign already contains most of the information the perceived target market would probably need.

If I were the express or any of the other local newspapers I would concentrate on improving and streamlining my web offerings to offer a deeper pool of searchable information rather than the current hodge podge of articles and features.

Added to that the fact that recently the NYTimes has removed the subscription fees for parts of their website even though they were making over $10 Million USD a year.

This maybe the movement or trend that you see with regard to most local content, being late to recognize the potential of tomorrow and being fixated with the business models of yesterday.