That’s what an interesting article in the latest edition of The Economist claims, specifically looking at the US newspaper market. The piece uses the faltering fortunes of the New York Times as a case in point, citing slipping circulation figures and advertising revenues being down 12.5 per cent on the same time last year. Now the two are, to a large extent linked. What is to blame, I hear you ask? well nothing other than The Big Bad Internet offering free, 24/7 news coverage and taking with it a share of the classified advertising newspapers relied on for so many decades.

But that’s the bad half of the story, the good half of the story is the vast oppotunity the The Big Bad Internet is offering media companies. People’s habits have changed, and the 24/7 news market moved away from newspapers a long time ago to TV and cable news networks. It’s just gone online too in the past five years. So what’s the big problem? Well there isn’t one if you accept how media consumption has changed and adapt. London’s Daily Telegraph has done so and seen it’s web site traffic surge.

Newspapers will never die - there will always be a huge market of individuals who like the experience of leafing through a newspaper, and getting stuck into more detailed news analysis and features. Those same people will likely be getting their breaking news fix online. I can say that with confidence because I am one of those people.

The key for newspapers is to understand that dynamic and look at what kind of publication you are, want to remain and adapt to reach your audience through the channel they want to receive you through. IDG is one media house that’s done that successfully and is doing very well out of it. Now it’s time that others follow suit, rather than moan about how traditional media consumption no longer exists.

Change, is after all, a good thing. Isn’t it?

2007 has been an amazing year personally. Leaving the warm bosom of agency life was a difficult decision but I’ve since been lucky enough to work with some amazing clients, agencies and practitioners on some really ground breaking digital PR campaigns. It’s been a journey into the future of PR and the future looks very bright indeed. So what do I think 2008 will bring?

1. The Year of the Widget
I have been spending a lot of time over the past couple of months working with some great developers on the design of widgets. I’m not talking about Zombies here, but creative, engaging, viral and above all value-added applications which support wider PR campaigns. The integration of widgets into the armoury of digital PR tactics will really take off in 2008 as developments like OpenSocial improve the economics and allow single applications to access larger audiences across multiple social networking sites. Beyond their role in PR, the widget will continue to change the shape of online advertising, as they move onto the desktop and mobiles – this recent article in Adweek is well worth a read to get up to speed.

2. Do you Vlog?
Video blogging will be one of the biggest tech trends of 2008. This will be driven by high profile bloggers such as Iain Dale experimenting with the medium as well as new platforms like Seesmic and Magnify. Another driver will be next generation mobile handsets with better quality in-built video cameras combined with falling data costs enabling vlogging on the move. It could even capture the media zeitgeist from Facebook, speaking of which…

3. Facebook media backlash
A bit like Jade Goody, having devoted acres of coverage building it up, 2008 will see the media try to bring Facebook down. The Beacon disaster has seen the US press sharpening its knives and the shift in sentiment will no doubt cross the Atlantic. Despite the less favourable coverage, Facebook will continue to grow and members will spend more and more time on the site. Reports of Facebook’s imminent demise by a few over excited commentators are I feel greatly exaggerated. The positives that make the site so great still far out weigh the disadvantages. The Beacon saga has shown Mark Zuckerberg that he stops listening to users concerns at his peril – I don’t think he will be stupid enough to make the same mistakes twice. Removing the negatives in terms of poor data protection and privacy, overly intrusive commercialisation and the small but growing volume of application related spam will need to be his top priorities for 2008.

4. Jumping on the social media bandwagon
Johnny come lately PR agencies will continue to jump on the social media bandwagon. Expect PR Week to be full of more stories of traditional PR agencies appointing heads of social media and creating specialist divisions.

5. A high-profile PR account shifts to a digital agency
The fundamental shifts in the PR industry will come into sharp focus when a high-profile client shifts its PR account to a Spannerworks-esque agency with digital and search at its core. There will be much debate and navel gazing. A few weeks later agencies respond by – yes you’ve guessed it – doing more of number 4.

Social bookmarking is where individuals can store, search, organise and share their links to web pages of interest. Social bookmarks are usually public, but can be shared only with specific people or groups. Social bookmarking services such as Digg and reddit organise users’ bookmarks with ‘tags’ instead of traditional folder systems. Social bookmarking services also provide web feeds to directly notify subscribers of new content as soon as it has been added.