Since posting last week on the ever increasing pace in changes the internet is driving at least t2 newspapers have announced changes due to the newspaper industries dismal situation. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is switching to an online only publication, and a group of reporters from the Rocky Mountain News are trying to form an online version of the storied paper that went out of print a few weeks ago.

Both papers are taking different approaches the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is firing most of it’s staff and publishing mostly stories rehashed from it’s parent, Hearst’s other publications. I can’t help but think this will be a sad parody of what a newspaper is supposed to be. The second is trying a more grassroots approach similar to what was done in MN (a state with 2 bankrupt daily papers), where a group of disgruntled reporters put together MinnPost. The result is a pretty good online paper (but the site could use a face lift).

What should be readily apparent is that the newspaper industry is broken. There is an excellent article written about this by Web theorist Clay Shirky on his blog. What he points out is that the basic architecture and functions of the internet are the undoing of the newspapers, and will spread to the rest of the publishing world. The danger is if someone dosn’t figure out how to make newpapers work the rest of the publishing world will probably see the same fate.

Let me start out by saying I am a child of the digital age. While I am a member of what is the last generation able to remember schools without computers, I have spent the majority of my life around them (thanks to forward thinking parents). I have fully embraced the digital age and all that comes with it.

With that preface I have to say something seems to be different lately. The last election i large part was won online, newspapers are dying at the hands of their online counterparts and one of the greatest radio hosts in the country TD Mischke just started an online only radio show. Personally I have moved much of my business software to web apps replacing the desktop, my email, contacts and to-do list are available on each computer I work as well as my phone, so is Google Maps. Maybe it’s just because of the economy but it fells as if any second we are about to open the door, and enter a new larger world.

This is a long rambling way to say that this blog is going to finally recieve some changes. The focus will change (more accuratly it will finally have some focus), the design wil be thrown out and it will be organized. The hope is that as we move quickly on this soon to be encountered shift, we will shift with it. Stay tuned for more, and thanks for your readership up to now.