Mobile Newspapers, Anyone?

The Editor’s Weblog had this to say about mobile newspapers the other day.  Oddly enough, it assumes that end uses are looking to replicate the print/web newspaper experience on their mobile phone.

If we had learned anything from RSS & co., it is that content matters more than presentation.  Why try and recreate a non-mobile experience on a device which was not designed to support it, when you can optimize the content stream to the device and have it delivered in a mobile-relevant manner. 

It’s all about separating the content layer from the presentation layer (which are one and the same in real newspaper).  Deliver the same high-value content, but adapt it to the device.  Adapt it to the mobile experience, where content is viewed in small chunks, where navigation needs to be dead simple and where entering text is a nightmare.

If you set out to replicate the real world / web newspaper experience on a 3″ device, you will fail, iPhone or no iPhone.

— Oren