Recently by Jay Wineroth

As innovations continually eliminate the previous disadvantages of receiving print media via e-books and cell-phones, newspaper will soon have to make their content more widely available. The best way for newspapers to do so is by tapping into the e-commerce market and thus obtaining desirable revenues.

Newspapers have already made the transition from print to digital and their content is made available on any device with an Internet connection. They also offer online users the ability to participate in different services like online gambling tournaments.

A study by the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), covering retailers' relationships with mobile device users, found that the 42 percent of the retail industry provides users with reformatted WebPages or especially mobile pages. These are statistics that newspapers can take advantage of.

Whereas newspapers once needed to create mobile-specific platforms, today standard Internet browsers are becoming more prominent on mobile devices such as the iPhone.
   
Due to these developing technologies, newspaper companies do not need to redesign themselves for mobile devices but can focus on developing their online formats. By providing various online services to subscribers, newspapers have the chance to generate revenue and reinvent the industry as a lucrative one.

Publishing 2.O's Scott Karp argued in his article "What Newspapers Still Don't Understand About The Web", that online newspaper formats are inhibiting viewers' ability to find the news they want.

His article outlined a simple test that he had completed to support his argument. While a storm hit the Washington area, Karp searched The Washington Post's homepage for information about the storm. But editors, Karp argues, did not find the story worthy of a prominent position on the homepage. Instead Karp found an article about the storm on a list of most viewed articles in the corner of the homepage. Still, the article failed to give Karp the information he sought.

He then decided to use Google. His search included the Washington power service provider called Dominion Power, who had posted maps and information Karp deemed more practical.

He decided to try the Washington Post again only this time he searched further than the homepage. Finally, in the weather section, he found everything his Google search had given him but more: real-time radars, warnings and updates, and even a link back Dominion Power's website.

Karp essentially contends that online newspapers are flawed because they are structured like traditional print newspapers. Online news sites expect users to think and do as they would with the morning paper. Google's design, Karp feels, offers users various websites whose content relates to the specificity of the search. This format appeals to Karp so much that he believes online newspapers should be "just a search box and a list of blogs."
This conclusion is extreme, although it could contribute to the premise behind future newspaper website designs.

What Karp did learn from his experience is that the Washington Post's website is actually an innovative, dual-website; one aimed at national and international readers, the other at local readers. The website reads users' IP addresses and sends users in the Washington area to local site. All users have the option of customizing their experience, making either the national or local version their preferred Washington Post homepage.