EVEN THOUGH I HAVE the Sunday Business Post iOS app, it was a string of pre-dawn tweets from Dublin that told me the news that Adrian Weckler had moved up to a well-deserved position of assistant editor. This is good news for Ireland's business press.
Adrian knows the time is right for standard newspapers to transition into the digital space. More importantly, Adrian knows mainstream broadsheets won't survive without stepping confidently into digital subscription zones. I'm watching how he helps the Business Post evolve its revenue base with a cash flow coming from people who may want to read Irish business news from one foot away (on their phones, as compared to a two-foot viewing angle with the pages spread out in front of them). I'm in with a subscription to the new app but because the digital experience doesn't feel complete to me, I also buy the Sunday Business Post in the print edition. I doubt any other third level lecturer in Ireland pays as much for the Sunday news.
I'm also trying to read the Sunday papers through my phone's video recorder and I have more than 40 samples of that work in my Topgold collection on YouTube. I've watched Adrian do his own video reviews and think that kind of rich media belongs inside the Business Post app as well as flat text. There are compelling hallway comments that the Business Post staff could capture during industry events as well as comments from government officials during the worst economic austerity in the Republic since the Great Depression. These Ground Zero moments need to be recorded and audio interviews will do the trick.
I'm looking on with interest as Adrian Weckler steers the Business Post towards a new horizon.
See more about Adrian Weckler in my Sunday newsround for December 18, 2011. Listen to the track I had on my Sony Clié PEG UX-50 when I first met Adrian Weckler in 2003:
