What Newspapers and Their Web Sites Must Do to Survive

Ten years ago, many newspaper industry futurists hoped that publishing online might save the industry. But they poured their energies into multimedia and failed to use the technology to do the one thing that could bring readers back: create papers tailored to readers' individual interests. The industry is instead using new media to do the same things that newspapers did 40 -- or 350 -- years ago. The business models are based on the antiquated limitation of analog presses. The real solution for the industry's future ... will require that the newspaper industry: a) Use new technologies to match the newspaper's existing cornucopia of content to satisfy each individual reader's unique mix of interests, b) Understand that neither newsprint nor the Web nor digital editions nor wireless is the answer, but that the true convergence of all those into a single unitary product not only is necessary but likely, c) Focus less on the industry's ability to produce content and more on its unique service of delivering to people a complete package of content -- a change that requires newsrooms and corporations to go beyond traditional definitions of "news" or "syndicated sources."