The newspaper is dead . Everyone knows that. You know it, I know it even the newspaper companies know it.  Famous investor Warren Buffet recently said that he wouldn’t by a news paper stock at any price, and this is a guy who by all accounts know what he’s talking about. That being said as I’m noted before the  high level concept of the newspaper is worth saving. Yesterday the New York Times released their Times reader 2.0 , adobe Air application that makes reading the paper on line more like reading the paper on Sunday. While i hate to admit it, because complaining is so much easier, It’s nice.  The typography is right, the layout is familiar and it’s not riddled with ads.  There is free content as well as a premium subscription at $15/month.  I think this will get really interesting when you start combining business models allowing for personalization of your subscriptions  both in the digital and offline worlds.  This is something that the cable tv industry has learned well with thier a la carte offerings. People will pay a higher unit price to have specialty content that they like.  Specifically in a newspaper context,  a mixed subscription of weekday online weekend hardcopy makes an interesting offer in my mind.  Allowing people to further customize thier online news viewing  by selecting specific sections could be another option. Whatever happen, innovations like the Times reader and the kindle will need to see large scale adoption to make a go of it but they do offer some intrigiuging possibilities.

 http://timesreader.nytimes.com/timesreader/index.html