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The Electronic Shift
As content creation and delivery models become more intertwined with technology, IT is working alongside editorial to capture readership and deliver content more efficiently. To do so, IT is harnessing the tools of Web 2.0: content management software, multimedia and blogs, and user-generated content (UGC). "We have to keep pace with the way customers want to receive information, whether that's in print or online," says CTO Scott Lubeck of Harvard Business School Publishing (HBSP) in Watertown, Mass.
Certainly, consumer demand is fueling industry growth. Since 1998 the number of print magazines has grown one-third; and between 2004 and 2005, print book sales increased nearly 10%, according to Plunkett's Entertainment & Media Industry Trends & Statistics 2007. But compared with the increase in online consumption of content, print gains are modest.
Between 1998 and 2006, for example, average daily newspaper readership decreased from 58% to 49% of adults. But between 2000 and 2004, the percentage of people reading news online nearly doubled, growing from 19 million to 35 million, according to a 2005 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Some electronic mediums have been slow to take hold; digital books constituted a mere 0.1% of books sold in 2004. But the increasing popularity of handheld devices such as the iPod (nearly 40 million were sold in 2006) and cell phones (72% of U.S. consumers have one) leave plenty of untapped revenue potential.
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