Marshall Kirkpatrick passed me in a hotel corridor in March. He was rushing into his panel at South by Southwest in Austin. I was just leaving one. He nodded and said, “Check out the site. Just broke something potentially big.” The news of Google Circles wound up being not as big a deal as, say, Watergate, but in that moment I knew we were firmly planted in a New Establishment.
The facts are these:
- Paid newspaper subscriptions have been steadily declining by a 2-3 percent rate every six months since 2005 (Editor & Publisher)
- Several major daily newspapers including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Miami Herald and Dallas Morning News have experienced steeper declines in subscriptions in 2007. (Editor & Publisher)
- Viewership for evening news has decreased one million viewers per year for 25 straight years (Nielsen Media Research)
- 2007 featured the least-watched week in recorded history for the big four television networks (Associated Press)