Yes, behaviors like reading the obits & finding out who lived in your community after it's too late to meet them will be history, along with the people who did that. Instead, we will be clicking "Like" on a message about the passing of someone, penned by a Friend of a Friend of a Friend, who happens to be the local obit writer. Different transport, same protocol. - Wade Dorrell

News from the night before. Great idea at the time, current implementation lacks freshness. - Sam Pullara

Disagree. Paper is a wonderful medium -- cheap, disposable, high-res. Newspapers need to be reinvented to fill in the needs not yet filled by the Internet. - Mitch Wagner

Robert, the only reason newspapers will every die out is because the advertisement model may move away from them, making it impossible to keep printing the paper. People love newspapers. Seriously.And if you guys think that the 24x7 "real-time" on-line experience can ever match me sitting outside with a beautiful sunset, drinking my cup of coffee and skimming thought the news then I suggest you reconsider. - Alexander van Elsas

Mitch and Alexander: you guys are smoking great dope! Nobody my son's age is going to read newspapers. Even old people are telling me they aren't reading them anymore. Including congressmen!!! But that's not the real reason. The real reason is because they are freaking expensive to distribute and will become more and more expensive over time compared to digital media. Add that to the fact that the business model is disappearing VERY QUICKLY and you can see that within 15 years most newspapers not be printed - Robert Scoble

On the other hand, newspaper brands will certainly survive. Almost all the journalists I talk with see this trend very clearly now. Paper is just not a good way to distribute information anymore and it will get worse and worse with each year that goes by. Soon (within 20 years) you both will be dead and will be replaced by people who wouldn't think of reading stuff on paper. Seriously. - Robert Scoble

Robert, not on dope;-) Actually you are giving the same reason for their extinction as I am. the business model! But for reading, I bet that I know more people that do read them than people that stopped reading them. And in Holland major brand newspapers are experimenting with different reading formats aimed at young people, faster news, less long articles, more pictures in them. They will adapt to the reading behavior, but the business model is what will really kill them. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander: Funny, the publisher of the Washington Post told me a few years back that a little more than half the people in DC start their morning with the Washington Post. But he admitted he's losing and that's why he's investing like crazy into online media. Personally paper won't be able to turn the corner. Kids want the immediacy (so do we, look at what's happening here) and will never accept paper news. Books might be safe for a while longer, but I can see a day where even they are gone. - Robert Scoble

Hear hear Robert, I live in a one (print) newspaper town (Perth, Western Australia) and the one newspaper until recently really did nothing on the web, they didn't get it, recently another publisher has opened an online only news service and suddenly they are playing catch up, they will never compete with their old mentality. No one I know reads print based newspapers any more, yet currently they still hold exceptional influence? go figure that one out! - Darren Entwistle

Anyway I agree that the print based model for information delivery of daily news will expire with those who currently buy it to read the obituary column! - Darren Entwistle

Robert, this immediacy thing. I am not so sure about it. Everyone loves immediacy (I do too), children love it. But I also believe there is a need for balance in life. Not everything needs to be immediate. Kids will grow up and find that balance too, just like we are. Maybe not in newspapers. But I can tell you right now that if everything is immediate, the idea of immediacy will become less important. Everything that comes up must come down ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Can't believe I said that while I haven't actually finished my first cup of coffee this morning ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander: sorry, it's a NEWSpaper. When it comes to news, immediacy is HUGELY important. News isn't news if it's old. - Robert Scoble

Robert, hah, you haven't been reading newspapers lately have you ;-) There is the immediate stuff, and there is all that other stuff which makes up probably 50% or more of today's newspapers. But I do agree of course that the important stuff is best when it's fresh and immediate. But there will be som much of that, that we will find slow news more interesting. It's a balancing act. Hmm, I feel a possibility for a blog post here ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander: I read them once in a while when I am in a hotel room and they leave them in front of the door (like the room I'm in now). They make me feel even stronger that their time is over soon. It's just a horribly expensive distribution channel and people are being trained against reading them. - Robert Scoble

@Robert give it a rest bud .. the number of people who don't "get" newspapers is infisimal compared to the rest of society that does. Whether it be the small local newspaper to the national dailies. They aren't going anywhere soon. - Steven Hodson

On several occasions the past weeks I have hesitated to cancel my newspaper subscription, almost everything is "old" news, but like Alexander said there is so much more to newspapers than news, especially the "quality" newspaper I read. I still buy it for the opinion and editorials, the in-depth series on specific issues around the world. But I do spend less time with it than 2-3 years ago. - Marc Dierens

Sorry Scoble, -- good, deep, accurate, thorough, analytical reporting doesn't come immediately. Think pieces don't come immediately. Papers are already adopting a philosophy of breaking the news on the Web, then spinning it forward in the paper to tell you why it's important and, in particular, why it's important to MY community, MY school district, MY city council. Newspapers will be around a long time delivering analytical pieces on local news, even when breaking news is exclusively online. - Kevin Hessel

Steven: I remember the day when a Kodak exec told me that digital photography would never happen. I also remember the day when you all weren't using PCs. I also remember the day before email. Before IM. Before the Web. Things are changing. Let's meet again in a decade and see how many newspapers survived. Some will still be around in a decade, but the trend will be very clear by then. - Robert Scoble

Kevin: and why can't that stuff all be delivered over the Web? Any rule that good, deep, thorough, analytical reporting can't be delivered online? No. In the meantime, delivering a newspaper to your home is an expensive way to deliver news (readership has been going down in every survey I've seen) and the advertising world won't spend money on newsprint anymore because it simply isn't efficient compared to online. Already in SF newspapers are laying people off in droves. - Robert Scoble

Andy C: not to be crude or anything, but people like you are dying and are being replaced with people who don't complain about screen text sizes. I've heard all these arguments. They won't wash, sorry. And newspapers are NOT cheap to deliver. They are HORRIBLY expensive when compared to online media. You really need to visit a printing plant to see just how expensive these things are. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I would disagree....or should I say it will not atleast happen in your son's lifetime...the reason being that technology penetration needed atleast in developing countries is still not up to that mark, to be able to replace the plain vanilla newspaper. And another reason is personal: I still like to hold something in my hand.Thats why never liked e-books too except for tech readup :) - Arjun

No rule, but your initial point was that news needs to be immediate for newspapers to survive, and the Web is more immediate, therefore newspapers won't survive. Are we abandoning that? If we are, then we've opened ourselves up to any printed form -- the death of books, the death of magazines, even the death of newspapers -- that should have come from TV and radio, which use the same broadcast model as the Web (advertiser supports station, user experiences what they perceive to be as "free"). Still here! - Kevin Hessel

Has your son ever read a newspaper given he has been raised in the internet age? - Michael McGimpsey from twhirl

PS You are right though. Newspapers have a limited life - Michael McGimpsey from twhirl

Layoffs are also due to owners expecting ridiculous profit margins. Papers thrived on 20-25% margins - far more than the oil industry is being criticized for. And now paper owners are beholden to their debt-holders, so they can't even reconsider acceptance of more realistic profit margins. Solution: Lay people off and cut costs like mad. They still pull in 12-15% margins -- about the same as Exxon -- but they're being called dead. (*And* don't forget "user experience.") - Kevin Hessel

I think I've got a question here. Is the newspaper as a physical medium dying (that is, the newsPAPER), or are we talking about the medium? If it's the first one, I'm totally with you: newspapers are dying, fast. They will eventually be replaced by the Internet and maybe e-books. Paper is expensive and non-ecological. But, if you say that journalism is due to die with newspaper, then I disagree. I can only see a bright future for journalism (if journalists can understand the richness of the new media environment). And for information ;) - Kurai (ff) from twhirl

Andy: like I said, that's expensive compared to the marginal cost of digital media. The thing you are forgetting is that anyone who wants to be part of modern society will have to have a computer or a capable cell phone anyway. Kevin: yeah, I know that companies are needing better margins to keep up with the investor expectations. Anyway, I'm off to bed. Hopefully Patrick has a long life so I will be right. If he lives another 60 years, which is about the average lifespan for a male in USA, then he'll... - Robert Scoble

...definitely see the death of newspapers. I think most newspapers that we are now seeing will die in next decade due to the business model imploding (it's going to get a lot worse as advertisers realize they can get a much more efficient buy online and as more people come online). The costs will continue going up, too (gas costs, for instance, raises the price of getting newsprint and ink to printing plants -- paper and ink are heavy things and take a lot of energy to move around). - Robert Scoble

There is a keen appreciation of the context in which stories display in print that cuts to a core McLuhan belief that part of the message delivered in print derives from the medium through which it arrives. If print is dead, there should be no appreciation of that significant relationship among teens, yet I work with junior high school students who tell me otherwise. I don't believe printed dailies will cease to be a significant social fixture inside the next 20 years. - Bernie Goldbach

Bernie: well, like I said, I gave my son his lifetime to see these changes. That'd be 60 years, if he lives out his average life expectancy (which probably will go up in his lifetime). But I'm already seeing these changes happen, and, so, I personally expect that you'll see many newspapers disappear in the next decade. I doubt they'd all disappear. Heck, steam locomotives are still being used in some parts of the world even though we haven't seen those in use in decades in the US. - Robert Scoble

Not sure I agree with your prediction - but for reasons far simpler than most of those listed above. Television did not kill radio. Cable has yet to kill network TV. Computers have yet to kill TV. DVD/VHS/etc has yet to kill the movie theater. Will many newspapers 'die'? Probably. But I doubt that the entire medium will disappear any more that I believe that the Kindle will replace an actual bound book. - Lucretia Pruitt

Scoble, If you are in DC on Thursday, go check out conductor Leonard Slatkin's farewell concert at Kennedy Center ($20-$80). Plus thursday, they have AfterWords discussion, where you get to talk to Leonard. Guest Celloist Sol Gabetta plays Shostakovich. I highly recommend sitting in front row. I saw Sarah Chang play Brahms w/ Leonard in Jan. here is link: http://tinyurl.com/yteq49 - Pokai

Robert, decided to take one part of this, your immediacy comment, and wrote about it. My 2cts? It's gonna be way less important once it is there for all of us. http://tinyurl.com/59rzyx - Alexander van Elsas

I almost joined the National Press Club, but then I thought better of it. - Josette Torres

I look to Japan, which has a fantastic internet infrastructure and great tech uptake rates but still has a growing newspaper industry. Sadly alot of 'new media' news resources sacrifice fact checking and impartiality for speed. Its very hard to build up trust with your audience and thats the key for building a loyal readership. - Steven Cains

I've learned never to use my children as a focus group for an entire generation -- especially when it comes to using technology that is expensive and requires a certain level of education, sophistication and affluence. I've also learned that new media rarely "kills" old media -- it "changes" the role of old media, but does so slowly and over many generations. I have no doubt the "newspaper" as we know it will be extinct one day. However, I also know the technology replacing it will follow it into extinction - Rex Hammock

My dad stopped buying the NY Post after the price recently doubled. He said that the Post is a rag of a newspaper and that most of the news is online in half the time. He also noted that the newspaper vendor he went to lost most of his business. - Michael Perlman