Google & the "Death of Print"

Val Landi's Weblog, Thurdsay April 13

I've mentioned in prior blogs about Paul Saffo of the Institute of the Future describing certain events that occur in the marketplace as "field events" that signify a turning point in our culture and society.

We've all been aware over the past couple of years about the dramatic shift of ad dollars in all categories from print and network TV to online, especially to the intention databases such as Google and Yahoo.

The true demise of print was brought home during a meeting this morning in NYC at the headquarters of one of the world's largest ad agencies.

I was meeting with the CEO of the interactive group who announced in confidence that one of their Fortune 10 clients was dropping print completely, an act that would have been unthinkable a mere three or four years ago. A tremendous opportunity and red-letter trend marker for online media firms; a tragic but predictable denouement for traditional media (which I discussed in last weeks' "Darwin & Social Networks" post).

The recent acquisitions by the oldline media empires News Corp and NBC Universal of My Space and iVillage forshadowed this field event with brilliant clarity.

Realtime Publishers  Google  Print Media  Online Media  My Space iVillage NBC Universal  News Corp