Depends, is it the big edition with all the coupons?

How... odd hearing that from the owner of my cities only daily paper.

What's a newspaper?

The newspaper classifieds are still a popular place for low-information people (no offense intended to anybody) go to sell stuff. Sometimes you can get a good deal from somebody who doesn't know what their thing is actually worth.

The newspaper classifieds are still a popular place for low-information people (no offense intended to anybody) go to sell stuff. Sometimes you can get a good deal from somebody who doesn't know what their thing is actually worth.

This is a very good point you make here. But the thing is: low-information people tend to be lower-income people and that's not an attractive market for advertisers.

"Advertise in our Sunday section and reach 200,000 indifferently educated, not very sophisticated, older consumers who might have AOL e-mail because their kids insisted on it."

Ditto JP. I have yet to hear a small business success story via newspaper inserts, ads, or (hated) stickers on the front page. I have heard lots of groans about x$ put into newspapaer ad copy yielding -zero- results.

It is interesting how the indie papers are doing well still. Austin, Houston, and San Antonio Chronicles, Denver and Colorado Springs Independants, etc.

Mainstream newspaper headline: End of World, Doom and Gloom, etc...
Mainstream newspaper follows self-fulfilling prophecy. Heh.

The Boston Globe recently discontinued its weekday classifieds. Today's Sunday section (not including cars or real estate) was only 3 or 4 pages; it used to be entire sections.

And, more and more of the articles by regular columnists are "highlights from this week's blog". Let's save some trees people.

You're absolutely right, j_p. There's no doubt in my mind that newspapers, in the long run, are pretty much doomed (and that they did it to themselves).

I'm interested in information asymmetries, though (mainly as it relates to digital divide stuff, which is both a personal and professional interest), and this is a big one. Right now, anyway, newspaper classifieds are a major buyer's market. I bet there's a way that someone smarter or greedier than me (probably someone with more startup money and spare time, too) might be able to monetize this.

A newspaper's carbon footprint has become too unwieldy. The truck fleets alone that move papers from the printing plants to the distribution centers are vast, fuel-hungry and constantly needing maintenance. Also, most large papers modernized their presses in the late 70s and early 80s when several cost-cutting innovations were introduced. Those presses are now reaching the end of their life span, and spare parts cannot be bought but must be machined in house. New presses are much smaller, and replacing the old presses in the old printing facilities would not be cost-effective. Further, the unions are not budging, yet eliminating positions and downsizing wages are about the only cost cuts remaining for most papers.

The only other option is to sell off the production side of the paper and outsource the printing and logistics. Most likely, this would also bust the unions.