Death of printed news

 The Christian Science Monitor rocked the publishing world recently when it announced it is discontinuing its daily print editions and instead relying on the Web for delivering up-to-date news. Much of the reaction centered on this was a sign that printed news is in fact on its death march. 

Whether you believe it or not, the latest piece of evidence came this week as one of the major (formerly) newsweeklies signaled that it is giving up on print and focusing on its Web presence. The only print content it will put out are monthly consumer guides like its hallmark "Best Colleges in America" edition. This excerpt from a memo put out by the publication to announce the changes the AFP's coverage said it all:

"We're accelerating this transformation in response to our rapid growth online where our audience is now about 7 million uniques a month and growing," US News president Bill Holiber and editor Brian Kelly said in the memo.

"For all of you who have worked so hard to make this transition possible, say good-bye to Web 2.0 and welcome to Journalism 5.0," they added.

Like other US magazines and newspapers, US News has been losing readership and advertising revenue to online media for years.

While this is an acknowledgment that ad revenue has moved online, the question is whether these publications can make as much per ad to be profitable going forward. It depends on how sticky they make the sites, which is why we're seeing more and more publications add community and social networks to their online presence, which presents more opportunities for companies, as we've commented here in the past.