If a dead-tree medium falls in the forest... can it become a nurse log?

The media's abuzz about the death of tangible media. Recently casualties include Gourmet, Modern Bride, National Geographic Adventure, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocky Mountain News. The Christian Science Monitor became America's first nationally circulated paper to move entirely online. Magazines like PC and Playgirl have done the same, digital migration.

In 2009, 428 titles closed, compared with 618 in 2008 and 643 in 2007. The good news? The rate of decay is slowing. But new efforts are down from 335 in '08, according to Mediafinder.

“Despite the difficult year for the magazine industry, more than 275 magazines launched in 2009 – showing there is still strength in the regional, health, and food categories, with Food Network Magazine reporting more than 1 million readers,” explained Trish Hagood, President of Oxbridge Communications, publishers of MediaFinder.

Some of this turbulence is good, as Steve Rubel, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, pointed out on Micropersuasion.com in November 08. "We're moving fast toward becoming a society that consumes media entirely in digital format. Part of it is environmental, but a lot of it is because of broadband and connected devices. Now of course it will take a long long time for this to become a global phenomenon. But in the US at least, the pace has picked up a lot just in the last few months."

The buzzword here is "media green" ... and the trend's advantages are obvious. But now the debate centers around how to keep content-creators fed, both long-term professionals and "citizen publishers" stepping up to the plate like us.

The answer may well lie in technology from smartphone apps to electronic ink, which prevents the eye strain often provoked by backlit displays. Even in bright sunlight, e-ink pages resemble those of a paperback.

Products like Sony's Reader, Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook allow folks to download books, blogs, magazines and newspapers onto a wireless device. Portable, the 1/3-inch-thick Kindle is often called the last digital great hope: even Oprah's a fan. The idea's pretty basic: make it easy for users to pay for quality content and, a la iPod, they just might. But Amazon employs a proprietary format: Digital Rights Management (DRM) issues diminish the Kindle's appeal for many. Here tech-writer Yardena Arar reviews the best e-book readers in a 2009 PC World article.

In another article, the author notes that emerging technologies will soon blend color and video into such devices, along with more swiftness and sturdiness.

In early April 2010, Apple launches its much-heralded tablet computer, the 1.5-lb iPad, weighing in from $499. Here two experts debate whether this medium will save publishing. Hopefully, as Tony Bradley, co-author of Unified Communications for Dummies, points out in another article: "Traditional media – whether books, magazines, newspapers, music, or movies – stillneed to grasp the digital landscape, and the changes that it brings for the economic models they have built their businesses on for decades. Somewhere out there is a revenue structure that creates a win-win-win for the publishers, the platforms (like the iPad and the Kindle), and the customers."

Electronic paper could take this a step further, introducing flexible, scrunchable displays. I have high hopes that bigger canvases will encourage some of print media's "eye candy" elements – like strong photography and design – to migrate into cyberspace.

The web's future is uncertain, but with that instability, brings much excitement. Check out this great article for an overview of where this all could lead.