For grins, next time you're in the mood for a movie, go rent "The Paper" with Michael Keaton and Glenn Close. Released in 1994, it involves a day in the life of a New York City tabloid newspaper.
A self-admitted tech geek, Chris Pirillo is president of Lockergnome.com, a blogging network.
What a difference a decade (and a half) makes.
It's a bit like a denizen of the year 1909 trying to fathom the relevance of what went on behind the scenes of 1894's cutthroat horse and buggy industry while Henry Ford's factories roll out Model T after Model T, dramatically changing the world's landscape -- for better and worse -- in ways we're still dealing with here in the 21st century.
Recently, someone asked me about the last time I'd picked up a newspaper, and I couldn't honestly remember when that was.
Actually, no -- I take that back. I picked up a local weekly from our driveway and tossed it into the recycling bin just the other day.
Why dirty up my hands with newsprint when I can just go see the same information presented in the more searchable and easier to share format of a Web edition?
And what if a so-called news agency doesn't have an online edition of its paper? Then I find its relevancy even more dubious and obsolete since it's failed to scoop this bit of hot news that should be apparent to anyone with brains in their noggins: print media is dying.
Failure to adapt to the rapidly changing methods of media distribution will leave the clueless wallowing behind like mastodons in the muck of a Pleistocene tar pit (about as slow and agonizing of a death as I can imagine).
I'm not an elitist or anything. I've just grown accustomed to getting my news online -- something that gives me the ability to pass interesting articles immediately on to friends. Without scissors, paper scraps, and messy fingers, you just can't do that with print.
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