My how things are changing at light speed.

Okay, so truthfully, some of us saw this coming long ago.

The “analog” world is moving to the “digital” world.  We all know that.  I’ve been talking about it to anyone who would listen for a while.  So have many others like Robert Scoble, Thomas Hawk, and more.

So is it a real surprise when members of the Facebook community start screaming for the rest of the world to stop catering to

an industry that doesn’t care about or deserve you?

I think not.

What does this mean in the short run?

If you are consistently online and privy to the happenings around the web, you probably aren’t too shocked (or you shouldn’t be). More and more, newspapers are aligning themselves with website developers to design a comprehensive site to keep their readers. My own local paper has done a good job with their transition. They even go so far as to include local blogs as an addition to their site.

In fact many readers find my photography tutorial blog through that “newspaper” site.

So they’re on the right track.

The long run?

Advertisers today are still stuck in their old ways. I still see boring ads that most people ignore. Getting advertisers to pay “newspaper” websites the same amount of money as they did when newspapers were only print is a hurdle that the newspapers are going to have to overcome.

The problem lies in the ability to actually track readers behaviour. Now advertisers are finding that people just aren’t clicking their ads. Previously ads in print were about impression and driving action through that impression was not easy to track.

Now advertisers are not willing to pay as much online for impression based ads.

This is a rather large problem for the newspaper industry as a whole. Already photographers are getting the hammer and journalists are having to “multi” post by adding a blog to their journalism.

The rest of the world?

Soon every industry that isn’t already facing these problems will be. It will be interesting to see how many smart creative professionals begin to realize this and begin to finally put their online portfolios together.