e-Metro: the first time an electronic edition has been offered for free
Today sees the launch of a free electronic version of the daily freesheet and commuter mainstay, Metro, writes Heidi Blake. e-Metro will allow subscribers to view the full paper online, zoom in, search for text, and share the edition with friends and colleagues.
The service is not the first of its kind to be offered by a national newspaper - the Guardian for one has a similar service - but it is the first time an electronic edition has been offered for free.
But will e-Metro take off? The service is not currently available for download onto PDA devices such as iPhones or BlackBerrys, which means subscribers will only be able to access it from a computer terminal and not when they're on the commute.
Surely this is a big departure for a commuter paper - so to speak?
There are few commuters who have never got stuck into Metro's serving of celeb gossip, potted politics and stories about men with nine-inch nails in their brains. But it's one thing skimming the rag when you're on the Northern Line, trying to distract yourself from the hissing of that woman's headphones and the sight of that bloke picking his nose.
It's quite another downloading the thing when you're in work or at home. Isn't it?
Metro claim the service is aimed at people who normally read the paper, but have been unable to pick it up on a given day because they are on holiday, or took a different route to work. But isn't there a chance that such people, once stationed at a computer with all the glories of the world wide web at their fingertips, might opt to read something else instead?
I for one will be interested to find out whether people actively choose to read the ubiquitous freesheet when there are alternatives available, other than an email backlog and a briefcase full of conference papers.
But, more importantly, what about you? Do you read Metro on the train? And would you sign up to the online version?
