Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

According to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, the newspaper industry needs to stay focused on investigative journalism. Interestingly, he added that the newspaper print industry doesn't have much of a future.

Newmark was pretty blunt saying: "People who run printing presses are screwed." I wonder what those attending the annual Newspaper Association of America meeting had to say after that? It's not like they don't really know it.

Warren Buffett concurs with him saying that the only real reason somebody would own a print magazine in the future would be for vanity or prestige, not for the economics of it.

The one bright spot for the newspaper industry is its online growth, where it's increasing at a rate almost double the general Internet population is. It industry as a whole is receiving 59 million visitors a month on average for the first quarter.

Within that context, the industry is enjoying financial growth also, as 88 percent of those that visit newspaper Web sites make a purchase, in contrast to the 78.9 percent that make purchases on the overall Internet.
 
"Newspaper publishers have aggressively transformed their business models, continually providing ground-breaking content to consumers with their expanding digital portfolios," said NAA President and Chief Executive Officer John F. Sturm.