Down here in 1998, I mean Pierce County, the News Tribune is rolling out its tablet-based edition. It joins the nascent mobile ap, and a robust web site.
The News Tribune and other papers are finally getting some pricing power for online content – meaning enough people are accessing the paper digitally to justify the risks associated with charging. This, by the way, is a great thing since it will allow for the continuation of the original reporting and watch dogging at which the newspapers, like the News Tribune, are so overwhelmingly effective. 
But make no mistake: over time, as the hard copy readers literally die out – more and more newspapers will abandon printing.
Now sitting here in 2013 (1998 PCT) – most newspapers will fold over backwards swearing they will never give up the printed page. Bunk.
As soon as the cost metrics cut against printing – it’s done – believe you me.
Other members of the mainstream media are also considering similarly radical departures from their original medium. Broadcasters faced with the upcoming auction of frequency spectrum will have to take a hard look at whether the small fraction of over-the-air (OTA) viewers is worth the expense associated with true-blue broadcasting – and that will of course depend on the station, and its place in its local market since certain types of stations will overhaul their OTA models into mobile ones – but I digress.
For newspapers, the sooner they can shut down the presses, the happier their corporate overlords will be. Printing and distribution is a colossal pain in the USB port.
As for the News Tribune – the tablet version of the paper is great – except for the full page scans they use – which look like they were done after an intern tried to clean peanut butter off the glass plate.
Once they can do a Retina-worthy scan for full pages, the tablet version looks like a winner since it is easily navigated- and fast.
And heck, without having to walk to the paper box in the morning, we might just have time to start preparing for Y2K around here.
