LAT pressman/blogger says paper will cease printing in 3 years...

Stop the presses?

 

The advertising trades I read at the day job all tell the same story. Internet advertising, while cheap, has more consumer resistance and less rate of return than any other form of advertising. That's why marketing is moving so big time into social media and other forms of communication that aren't quite advertising. Print advertising, by contrast, has a known rate of return despite its cost. So unless the LA Times is preparing to equip every subscriber with a free tablet computer so it can mimic print advertising in digital form, this isn't going to work.

 

The Philadelphia Inquirer is selling crappy Android tablets, but who would really buy a crappy tablet? Even the decent Android tablets aren't selling well.

 

Did I miss something?

 

Sorry, Versatile, I can't see your post over the piles of money I have in front of my monitor.

 

You didn't. Good point.
More effectively, the movie industry (production and release) and an auto-maker rebound didn't result in increased advertising at the LAT.

 

True stamement until: When the production and circulation costs are greater than the revenue.

 

i believe We are approaching a time when tablets will be paper thin and will provide texture digitally. I think that will be the finishing point for print completely. The question is whether we can make money off that.

 

For tablets to become ubiquitous enough for print (in all forms) to disappear, it will take at least another 20 years. They are too expensive for some people, and others simply won't try them until they are forced to.

Smart phones are hardly ubiquitous at this point.

 

Twenty years ago the World Wide Web was introduced as a project. And cell phones resembled luggage more than phones.
Predicting the next five, 10, 20 years -- to me -- is foolhardy.