Is Print Doomed?

Jarvis: But the economics of the industry must change. Kleiner Perkins VC Vinod Khosla said at the Web 2.0 conference that the model of "top-down content is no longer relevant." It's a bottoms-up world where, he predicted, the winning media companies will be "the most adaptable, not the biggest or the one with the most content." The winners will be "aggregating audiences in interesting ways."

So take that as advice from the bottom up: Find ways to aggregate people and capture the wisdom of that crowd. When the public edits that "infinite number of tiny fragments at the bottom," as you put it, they do it well: The best photos at Flickr.com/explore rival even those in National Geographic. The people have intelligence and taste – or they wouldn’t be buying your magazines, would they?

And now let me close by asking for your advice from the top down: When, as you say, people will continue to expect information to come at little or no cost, what will it take for marketers to value and support new media as much as they do old media--now that the audience is there?

Griffin: I agree that the winners will be the ones who aggregate audiences in interesting ways, the way Google Earth and hundreds of other great web sites already have. It's said that amateur astronomers using only the web are the ones making the most discoveries in space these days. If that is true, it's inspiring and proof of the power of the Internet and wisdom of the amateur. And, of course there are fabulous photos on Flickr.com. (There are terrible photographs there as well.) For National Geographic to maintain its position as the world's leader in photo journalism we will have to find a way to celebrate those terrific photographs and photographers. If we don't someone else will.

I can't say how we'll get marketers to support the new, fragmented media as they do the old media. There is a tsunami of money flowing into the web, and some will trickle down to bloggers. But advertisers are not agents of change. For the most part they are risk averse. They aren't going to embrace things they can't easily measure or compare and at this point they don't seem inclined to bother with small audiences. So until they can measure and buy easily and not risk the boss' wrath because they bought Gawker.com instead of The New York Times, it's going to be tough. But in the final analysis, quality, performance, and passion will overcome most barriers.