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The Death of Print?
Just like television didn't spell the end for radio, Friedman doesn't think the Internet and its future content and delivery incarnations will spell the death of printed newspapers, but he does think it will change them. The minute we discount one medium for another, we can say goodbye to one of the industry's favorite catch phrases: media mix.
"Web sites will work in tandem with newspapers," he says. "The best news Web sites today are those produced in conjunction with a major news publication. That will continue to be true. The key to it all is presentation and updating. The Internet is a source of constant, fast-moving information. Print newspapers are not. The newspapers have to provide something the Internet doesn't."
Futurist Wacker agrees, but notes that people may be getting their newspaper in new ways.
"We'll see the fusion of personalization and mobility. When I'm out of town, I will expect to be able to read my hometown newspaper as well as the Connecticut edition of The New York Times," he says. "Newsprint will never go away, just as paper money will never go away. But we will see electronic versions of newspapers cropping up that can be accessed anywhere. People will mix and match. They'll get the paper delivered and they'll go online."
Steve Blount, editorial director of World Publications-publishers of Saveur, Caribbean Travel & Life and other magazines - looks to the past to model the future of print media. "When television came along, people predicted the death of radio," he says. "In the end, television didn't kill radio, but it changed it radically. The Internet won't kill print, but it will change it. That will mean the end of opportunities for some publishers and the beginning of opportunities for others. The biggest change we're going to see is in the way mass communication happens. There are magazines now being launched on kitchen tables."
Many of the new launches, both of the kitchen-table variety and the progeny of established companies, will exploit ever-narrower areas of consumer interest. Niche publications will continue to proliferate, says Blount and other observers, with some making a hit-and-run play on fads, many failing and others gaining a stronghold in the market. "Some small publishers will survive by growing their magazines to a certain point, then selling them to larger publishers," says Blount.
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