The Printed Blog ceases publication due to lack of funds

Posted by Liz Webber on July 8, 2009 at 3:35 PM

The backwards-thinking yet futuristic idea of taking content from the Internet and reproducing it in printed form has not been the overwhelming success The Printed Blog hoped it would be. Founder Joshua Karp announced in a blog post yesterday that the publication would be put on hold indefinitely after running out of capital and failing to attract investors.

"Creating a new breed of newsprint publication from scratch was an amazing experience," Karp wrote, "and it was humbling to have been so prominently included in the global discussion on the future of journalism and the print media."

The Printed Blog, which put out its first edition in January, earned press worldwide for its novel approach to advertising and the print/online divide. Karp's initial vision was thus: People are getting more and more of their information online, yet advertisers continue to put most of their money into print publications. By using free content from online sources (with the authors' permission) and sustaining minimal printing costs, The Printed Blog could sell local advertising cheaply and still create a sustainable business.

Ultimately, it didn't work out that way. In a post on "Lessons I Learned," Karp laments expanding his business too quickly without a working revenue model. Distributing issues in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco while trying to court venture capitalists and score advertising dollars proved too much for the fledgling paper. If The Printed Blog had started small, printing one issue a week for one neighborhood without worrying about a splashy format, Karp claims it would have been a success.

Before its demise, The Printed Blog produced 16 issues in 80,000 printed copies and over 100,000 pdf downloads. Contributors included over 2,000 bloggers and more than 1,000 photographers.

Karp is confident his short-lived publication will have an impact on the world of journalism as it adapts to new realities in the months and years to come. That The Printed Blog caused such a media frenzy even before it officially launched lends support to that bold assertion.

Yet, despite all the hype and Karp's "what ifs," The Printed Blog did fail in the end. The model that Karp implemented was not profitable and so was forced to shut down. It's a situation that is repeating across the globe as printed publications of all types decide they can't go on based on financial considerations.

Karp states that several people have contacted him in the past six months asking to set up partnerships or form similar ventures. Will one of these publications be able to succeed where The Printed Blog could not?

One project with a comparable theme has managed to attract more than just buzz. Printcasting, a 2008 Knight News Challenge winner whose software allows users to create custom publications from online content, recently announced a partnership with Denver-based MediaNews Group. One notable difference between Printcasting and The Printed Blog is that the former works with local news media rather than in direct competition. Hopefully this new collaboration proves profitable for all parties.

Source: The Printed Blog, The New York Times