Industries on Life Support

The Internet's role as a creator/destroyer is also behind the constant talk of the demise of newspapers. Newspaper publishing, a $41 billion industry last year, fell 36% since 2000, with a 20% decline likely by 2016.

Failing to see the writing on the wall, and how the online world would snare eyeballs and advertisers, is once again a major part of the problem these companies face. It's been years and years since the "information superhighway" was a hot concept, and yet such companies as The New York Times {NYSE: NYT - News) are just now getting serious (though not yet successful) about such concepts as "paywalls" for their content. yahoo/thestreet