I think retail companies becoming more media oriented will be a big trend. Rather than buying ads on popular blogs, why not hire a talented writer and turn your own website into a media platform? For the cost one person's salary you could potentially develop a amazing community around your industry and product offerings. Makes a lot more sense than trying to buy attention one click at a time.

And THIS, I think, is the real problem facing newspapers.

Last month I sat for informational interviews with a handful of small business owners in a neighborhood I was thinking of starting a web site in. When I asked them if they were interested in advertising, their first response was sometimes, "but we have our own web site."

Gotta have something really special you can offer them.

That's why I like what Techmeme does, selling Feed space on the homepage. Clever.

It feels a lot less forceful, and if the information being provided is generally useful then they are more likely to have return visitors who will eventually evolve into customers.