It very well might. In fact, I’ll be so bold as to say that any publication that doesn’t adapt to the internet is doomed to fail. This time we live in is one of rapid change. After all, this is the ‘Information Age,’ isn’t it? We’re turning out this information stuff at a record pace – data, ideas and news all flood to us from a myriad of sources. There was a time when you had to choose between your local paper, radio or television for your daily news. Now you can cover the top stories from 3 or 4 different sources in ten minutes. That’s information. All that information has to come from somewhere, though. Someone has to write it, someone else edit it, post it, respond to the emails about it, host it and so on. All of those people want to be paid, too. Yet, we get to read that article for free. Unless we suddenly overthrow our government and implement some form of socialism, that imbalance doesn’t work out so well. It doesn’t work very well right now, truthfully. There will come a time, and it’s not far away, where the circulation of traditional newspapers will become uncommon. Why wouldn’t it? Why pay for something you can get for free? That’s the very issue the recording industry is dealing with. People flocked to the internet to download music causing CD sales to suffer. People started downloading pre-release movies and stopped going to opening nights. The same is happening with newspapers.

Is there another way? Can newspapers adapt? Yes. The very same business model that has brought Google tremendous revenue can save them. Online advertising is the way, the only way, newspapers can survive.

The New York Times spent several years offering an online-version of their newspaper for a fee. They were even successful with it, bringing in approximately $10 million a year from subscriptions. Yet, in the past year they gave up on their subscriptions. By abandoning that business model for one that relies on advertising, they expect to make more money. Consider this example: say you’re searching for information on India. You see a search result that looks promising, so you click on it. When you get there, though, you realize it’s a New York Times article and you have to pay to read it. What do you do? You find another article. What if you could read it, though? Instead of paying for it you scroll down past an ad for something and read the article in full. You’re happier, because you get to read your article. The New York Times is happier because they get to show you an ad that they were paid to display. Everyone wins.

The New York Times has embraced this very simple idea, as have others. The top web sites on the internet are free – Google, Facebook, YouTube. All paid for with advertising dollars. Free seems to be the currency of the internet, and it’s not going to change. The internet has revolutionized everything we thought about the distribution of information.

Is it bad, though? Not at all. Web-based publications have advantages over their print counterparts. Lower production costs, the ability to change and add to information quickly, simpler distribution. My favorite, though, is the effects on advertising. With print, it’s not possible for an advertiser to know how many people read their ad. As a business owner I know how frustrating this can be. On the internet, however, it is a simple practice, commonplace even, to track advertising. Not only can you know how many people “clicked” your ad, but their country of origin, what web browser they used, do they use a Mac or a PC, even what day of the week and time of day they clicked on it. That’s information that helps build better ads to reach a better audience. That, in turn, helps the web site charge more money to the advertisers.

There isn’t much time left, really. Newspapers all over the country are reporting lower circulations and diminishing advertising revenue. I didn’t get the crystal ball from Santa I asked for, so it’s hard to say how much time we’re talking about. I’d say five years, ten at the most. Those newspapers that embrace the change, like the New York Times, will be ahead of the curve. It’s not just the newspapers that are changing, though. Amazon sold out of their Kindle book reader for Christmas. Sony has thrown a lot of effort behind their Reader Digital Book. Think of them as reusable books. In the same way you would download a song, you can download a book. Or a newspaper. The time will come when you grab your digital reader as you head out the door on your way to the coffee shop. After you buy your cup of joe you can sit down and read all the articles you want from all your favorite newspapers. Complete with advertisements.

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