Mainstream news dailies such as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram aren’t the only publications hanging on for dear life during this transition from Old Media to the brave new frontier. I say “brave” because you’ve got to be pretty courageous to expect to make a profit in the online publishing world at this early stage of the evolution, when advertisers are slow to pay money for an ad they can’t hold in their hands.
Music magazines such as Rolling Stone, Vibe, Spin, and Blender are hitting sour notes as well. This Slate article blames the economy, declining ad revenues, and the all-too-familiar challenge in evolving from a paper product to the Internet, but also notes media overkill, self-promotion by musicians, and a wealth of information found at online fan sites, MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking web sites.
