Like most aussies I like picking up newspaper on my way to work however it’s evident to most people that newspapers are on the decline. A recent article in Mashable says that for the first time, more people are getting their news online than from newspapers.

Online content from an advertising perspective is exciting. With print you’re limited to just a graphic, with online you have all kinds of possibilities – Flash and video content, games etc. This means more of an opportunity to be engaging. And of course all that is available to the content too.

As Mashable states, it’s ‘pretty much a long, slow and painful downward spiral to the point that the newspaper, like the vinyl record, is a relic for collectors and anachronists.’ Ouch.

The Future

Actually I remember attending an advertising evening for News Ltd for advertisers and had a quick chance to look around at their advertising packages; newspapers make up only a small amount of their advertising solutions these days, the rest mostly coming from their online properties. News Ltd has pretty much gone out and bought high traffic websites in Australia so they can get the same reach online that they do currently through newspapers.

At least it seems the newspaper industry is accepting of its fate and taking steps to enter new markets, like for example with Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily, the first iPad only newspaper, check out launch video below:

It’s better than the record industry that stuck to its CD distributorship model even when mp3 players were decimating Walkman sales, leaving it to Apple to corner the market for online music download sales. Now Apple gets 35% from every song and album sold through their popular iTunes platform, and all they have to do is host the music. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me, no wonder their stock price is through the roof. Then again the iPod, iPhone and iPad probably contribute too.

While newspaper may still be around for some time, it’s no doubt that the trend is moving to online content which is great news for everybody, except maybe the guys working at the printing press.