BevLog

An op ed piece in The Washington Post takes a view on the state of that newspaper: "Not too bad as apocalypses go." As editor Dana Milbank puts it, working for the newspaper lets you "read your own obituary, pretty much on a weekly basis." It's no secret that the print media especially newspapers continue to decline, but Milbank sheds a light on "other data points worth considering."

Watching the Golden Globes last weekend on conventional network TV - plenty of jabs and blame going on about "late night" TV. All "mass media" continue to go through shrinking pains accelerated by technology.

New York Times says "It's Not Jay or Conan. It's Us."

Next day an NYT blog advises "Conan should make the Internet his time slot."

Less than 24-hours later MediaPostBlogs points out that Conan "can't go direct to Internet because we can't figure out how to pay him." And invites people to comment and/or Tweet.

It's no surprise that newspaper circulation continues to deteriorate as print media struggle to turn a profit. The latest Harris poll reports that "77% would not pay anything to read a newspaper's stories on the Web." Age and technology are key factors to this accelerating trend.

(Newsprint: Definition)

The growth of social media continues in 2010. I use Google News to stay informed and keep clients, associates and friends in touch via links in emails I send. Yesterday I saw local news about the first winery to open here in Fairfax County, Virginia and shared it with Polly.

She replied in an email with a link to media news about publishing companies joining the wine club movement! Big names like The Wall Street Journal and New York Times have been driven to this latest revenue stream. Where will the "old media" turn next?

Hard to believe it was ten years (Jan 10/99) ago America Online merged with Time Warner. The deal was valued at $350 billion and it remains "the largest merger in American business history."

Anyone living in northern Virginia was glued to the headlines and stayed glued. Many (including me) had friends or family who worked there and we became pioneer subscribers. IM was the "talk of the town."

But the AOL dial-up Internet model didn't "go digital." Once again, technology was the key to change.