I saw this quote, and shook my head. I said this in my little video clip about the future of the Olympics on TV. The networks are way too excited about low ratings and high Web traffic. It’s not an even exchange in one medium for the other.  I see danger ahead for shortsighted media execs.

 

From the World Association of Newspapers' Advertising Conference in Paris. Vin Crosbie says  "The revenue generated from a print reader is 20 to 100 times more than the revenue generated by the user of a newspaper's website. To put it another way, for every print edition reader lost, the newspaper would have to gain between 20 and 100 website users to replace the lost revenues

 

Here’s a statement of the obvious from Daniel Okrent, former NY Times ombudsman:

Blogs will overcome mainstream media as a source of news unless traditional media organizations successfully transfer the integrity of their brands onto the Internet, the former ombudsman of The New York Times says.

Is the game already over? A number of newspapers are stumbling in their efforts to incorporate blogs into their coverage maps, because they are hung up with old rules of workflow and editing. I particularly like the one newspaper that has separate blogging systems-- one for staffers (reporters and columnists) and another for consumer contributors. Who dreamed up that IT nightmare?

The window for newspapers is rapidly closing. The social community notions of Web 2.0 fall smack in the middle of what most newspaper used to be about. Get with it, or get out of the way.