'Is Print Dead?' and Other Tough Topics from the MPA Conference

Google exec to mags: 'Don't try to become tech companies'

Today’s MPA conference in San Francisco kicked off with a discussion of the magazine industry’s least favorite topic: the death (inevitable or otherwise) of print media. It was a non-MPA member, Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz, who first broached the issue. While adults ages 40 and older will continue to use the medium, “babies born today will probably never read anything in print,” he said.

In a separate session the same day, Dr. Jeffery Cole, research professor and director of the Center for the Digital Future at USC, concurred that print—at least newspapers—would continue to decline: “The sad truth about newspapers,” he said, “is that every time one of their readers dies, they’re not being replaced by a new reader.”

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