It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves—the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public—has stopped being a problem.
Sign in with 
OpenID
Yes, the traditional publishing industry is in decline. Executive in this industry simply need to understand that "the process of publishing" was never the main asset; the cost of building fact oriented databases has always been the most costly investment.
All publishers are database curators in disguise, their real asset lies in their deep high quality databases of people, events, and associated facts.
What isn't so clear, until maybe recently, is the fact that business models do exist around database sharing via the Internet & Web.
The Internet & Web have triggered inflections that will result in real business model shifts across two vectors:
1. Remembering the database is the asset, so think Linked Data Web meshes where publishers mesh their high quality details with generic public master records
2. Understanding the medium of value exchange has shrunk, its now a URI (a Link) that reveals the rich data meshes described in point 1 and not a large chunk of paper or a physical tube or sound emitting box.
The BBC, New York Times, and Guardian are all headed down the pathways outlined above.
Kingsley
Kingsley Idehen - 15th March 2009 14:39 - #
From what I know about the newspaper publishing industry and my (admittedly limited) experience, printing and distribution exceed most of the other costs of traditional publishing, even in major newspapers like NYTimes and Washington Post which have "superstars" on the payroll.
However, if you meant "valuable investment" rather than costly, I would withdraw my objection.
huxley - 17th March 2009 02:56 - #