"By extension, many argue that if newspapers had understood they were in the information business, rather than the print business, they would have adapted more

"By extension, many argue that if newspapers had understood they were in the information business, rather than the print business, they would have adapted more quickly and more successfully to the Net." I think this is the key point of the article, but I feel the author didn't really do much with that finding. He says that papers could have done better with online classifieds and should probably do something with aggregation. These are pretty standard conclusions at this point. More importantly, these conclusions still cling to the traditional role of the newspaper as a provider of news specifically. If newspapers are really in the information business, and I believe they are, they should act like companies that sell information. There are plenty of examples of successful information businesses on, and off, the web: Comscore, Nielson, Hoovers, Marketing Sherpa, Motley Fool, the credit reporting bureaus, Google(!), etc. While newspapers may not be equipped to compete in the same areas as all of these companies, they are more than prepared to enter into a variety of niches within the information market. My local paper, for example, routinely compiles data into little online features where you can go and find out, for example, what the weather was like on the last 5 Labor Days. They also keep track of and print the latest executive-level stock trades from local public companies. Why aren't they packaging that data for investors and selling it as an online subscription? Why don't they sell local housing data to realtors or speculators (granted, they'll need to wait for the next bubble)? Political contribution lists to watch-dog groups? Names of new hires/fires to recruiting firms/departments? It seems to me that while newspapers may be getting over the print business, they still think they're in the news business. If the advertising revenue from the news is getting thin, newspapers might consider augmenting that revenue by selling higher-margin information.