Robert Scoble points to memeorandum which links to an article from the Seattle Times extolling the virtues of new technology from Microsoft that will make reading newspapers on computers more like the analog experience for users of Windows Vista.

What I don’t understand is why there’s this fascination with making a digital experience as close to the analog one as possible? When I read ebooks, one of the things I prefer about it is simply not having to physically turn pages. Turning pages slows me down when reading, and is typically a two-handed job. The ebook reading experience is better because I can read a book on my Pocket PC in any number of good ebook readers (including but not limited to Microsoft Reader), and I can easily turn pages with the same hand that I’m using to hold the device, by simply hitting a button. I can read in complete darkness due to the backlight on my device’s screen, and my Pocket PC is also lighter than the average book that I’m reading. It can carry the contents of tens or even hundreds of books, so I’m never without a decent alternative if I don’t feel like reading a particular book at that moment. But the important thing to note is that the ebook readers that I use don’t try to replace real books by emulating the paradigm of flipping pages or any other silly artificial mechanism. They simply make reading better and easier.

When I’m looking for news online, I don’t see how having an experience that emulates the experience of browsing a newspaper benefits me much. In fact, I tend not to browse newspapers as it’s largely inefficient compared to the myriad of news options available online these days. Even if I did want to stick to one particular publication, say the New York Times, I’d stick to their website. It’s structured in a way that makes sense to my web-ified mind, as most publication’s websites are these days.

This new technology from Microsoft seems to have been built for old-timers – those that can’t let go of the newspaper experience – at the behest of the publications that are struggling to remain dominant, if not just relevant. I can see why Bill Gates thinks this is a good idea – it will appeal to people of his generation. But it won’t do a thing to attract young people to the “newspaper experience”, and I suspect the people that prefer the newspaper experience will simply stick to – you guessed it: actual newspapers.