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I don't think nytimes.com can demand nearly as much advertising revenue as the actual newspaper.

They could...if the content was identical. But a web site is not a newsaper. or is it?

And, again, I was invoking Google to show the ad model works, not to show they were the same.

Would any of those websites be viable without the ad revenue from the actual TV stations?

idk. Are there any websites out there that don't get subsidized by TV?

A little bit of javascript reading gave me this link.

http://software.newsstand.com/bookrdr/live/Reader.swf?pguid=6527212571398720&isbn=9780060558123

I was looking for a PDF I could download but this is as far as I could get.

Enjoy!

Not quite solving all the issues, web distributors such as [newsstand.com] go for the traditional approach of delivering online the identical content that is in the print edition of major newspapers and magazines, right down to the advertisements and special sections. As 70-90% newspaper cost is in distribution, publishers love this idea.

The world, of course, awaits the cheap paper-display technology (or floppy computers) that can be seen in the movies (such as Harry Potter and Minority Report).

My only "solutions" I've come up with is to dump the browser entirely and offer "newspaper skins" for another type of Internet program

bad idea, very bad one. in fact, it's already being done that way:
http://www.newsstand.com/

first thing they do? cripple it
no support other than windows. newspaper expires after 30 days. can't search article. in fact it's just the scanned version of the newspaper, and they charge nearly as much as the paper one

"We think that at the moment the screens will appear first in more expensive magazines in the form of high-impact adverts. But as the price sinks we expect them to appear in papers as well, possibly as a really attention-grabbing front page."

Newspapers and magazines, and any print media company for that matter, are all struggling with technology. Proprietary technology is the norm. There is rarely anything standard between one and the next. The advances in printing technology notwithstanding, no publisher could implement this without the help of a third party. It is extremely doubtful that we will ever see anything like this on a news shelf coming directly from even the "more expensive magazines." They are looking to reduce their distribution costs, which may be upwards of 50-70% of the total, not increase them.

For NYT there's also the option of using NewsStand - http://www.newsstand.com./ It's a digital subscription service that, for the same price as the print edition, you get a flash based duplication of the printed paper on the net. It's pretty nifty actually. The zoom ability is pretty cool. If anything, I think it's better than paying to subscribe to an html only version.

Paper may be archaic, but I already spend enough of my day in front of a computer. I personally like to be able to read the hard copy.

Beyond less strain on the ol' peepers, it's nice to be able to get away from the computer. With the online version, it might not be DRMed, but I certainly can't easily take it with me wherever I go (sure, I can print things out, but that format is still less than ideal for me).

I agree that the online version might be great for some, but I'm not one of those people. And I've tried NewsStand and Zinio as well as the online versions of many papers.

Beyond what I've mentioned already... For my taste, the screen is too small a device for the display of articles. With a paper, I might have to turn a page once or twice.... with NewsStand and Zinio I found myself doing a constant 'pan and scan'. Online articles required too much scrolling and clicking of 'next'.

I'll stick with the dead tree format (I recycle, mind you), but agree that a paper specifically formatted for display on-screen might be a good thing.

www.newsstand.com

... full story, which is available at Newsstand. (It will also be posted on the TRN website on Wednesday.)