Can the CrunchPad Save the Newspaper Industry?

Have you heard of the CrunchPad? Its this super cool new touch screen tablet, from Michael Arrington, that does one thing really well… surf the internets. The New York Times mentioned it on Friday, and I caught Steve Rubel’s CrunchPad post today while cruising around my reader. Apparently its due to launch this month, and in honor of its launch I wanted to share two things that I think are awesome about this:

Evolution / Innovation

Somebody has to pave the way for a keyboardless entry into the netbook/notebook market. I’m excited that the time has arrived. Face it, touch screens are just plain cooler then non-touch screens. I was afraid that I wouldn’t like to interact with a screen but it is great to be able to manipulate objects on the screen itself as opposed utilizing some kind of peripheral. The evolution of mobile computing has been fascinating to me, and touch is obviously the next game changer. Getting rid of the keyboard and mouse and implementing them into a touch interface makes things sleeker, lighter, and awesomer.

Now I don’t know if the CrunchPad will have an integrated keyboard at launch… but the next iteration of this new style of netbook/notebook most definitely will, and that’s why I am excited.

New Business Model?

I don’t follow the newspaper death watch closely, but I do follow along enough to know that print publications are getting their lunch eaten right now. With most on-line versions of a publication not sustaining the core business, because information wants to be free, could offering a product to print audiences serve as a new business model?

Here is what got me thinking:

– Scobleizer post on the need for start-ups to get people talking about them
– Fast Company Magazine piece about marketing firms selling their own products

What if a product’s need for consumers meshed with a group of consumers need for information? That’s the way it works now right? If I’m a start-up, I want to get my company talked about on TechCrunch or Mashable or wherever my target demographic consumes information.

The difference is that these on-line hubs already have the eyeballs and they control what gets talked about on their sites. They just need to start involving their audiences to develop products, and talk about it every step of the way. Seth Godin wrote today that everyone reads the New York Times because everyone reads the New York Times. That used to mean ad revenues. Why can’t it now mean product revenues?

If everybody is looking at you already, why not sell them something they want or need?

Bold Assumption

I think that on-line information publications can assume that a percentage of their readership would be interested in buying a product offering that they wanted or needed, and am really excited to find out if that’s true for the CrunchPad.

What do you think? Will the CrunchPad be awesome or will it suck? Is there anything to on-line publications changing business models and hawking goods to a mature readership? Please let me know.