Good points. I agree, the newspaper industry must change. And, it is. Gannett is introducing user-generated news. Reuters is running an online news bureau on Second Life. And, increasingly, local papers are starting to develop web-based solutions.
The missing element is still personalization. Newspapers have a whole lot of content. In just one issue there are perhaps millions of words, most of which are not of interest to each individual reader. What's needed is the delivery of the right news, to the right readers, in the right language, at the right time, and in the right format (delivered to the right device). We've been doing this in the technical communication and content management spaces for some time now (with the help of structured XML authoring). It's time for newspapers to adopt this model. It will save them money in the long-run, prevent defections (folks unsubscribing), and make it even more -- much more -- attractive to advertisers who want to deliver ads with pin-point accuracy.
Thanks for introducing this interesting topic. I'm sure we'll hear more about this in the future.
