This is Frank Romano from WhatTheyThink.com.  Several items I have found, this was really good news, “Magazine launches outnumber closures in first half of 2011.”  It said here 138 magazines were launched and 74 magazines were closed according to Media Finder.  Some of the new magazines that were started were “Progressive Cattlemen”, “Converting Quarterly”.  This was one of my favorite, “Industrial Wastewater” and of course “Texas Construction”.  Counting all magazines, journals, newspapers and newsletters, directories and catalogs according to Media Finder there are 77,000 publications out there.

But the world is changing.  In Philadelphia they are going to be giving or selling Android tablets.  I'm sorry, not giving, selling Android tablets and then it will be $2.99 a week to access the electronic version of the Philadelphia newspapers.  Many of the Philadelphia papers are owned by the same organization, so the “The Philadelphia Inquirer” now will be available in electronic form.  Maybe they’ll rename it the Inqwindle [ph].

And of course smartphones are having their affect on this marketplace as well.  Over half of smartphone and tablet owners say they would be somewhat or very comfortable using their device to make a purchase in a store.  It goes on to talk about what is happening with the smartphone or tablet.  According to this survey and I think that maybe they’re off, but okay, 61 percent of people don’t use their alarm clock anymore.  They use their smartphone as an alarm clock.  52 percent use it as a GPS.  Well okay, I do that.  44 percent use it as a digital camera.  41 percent use it as a personal planner, 37 percent as an mp3 player, 34 percent as a video camera.  28 percent replaced their newspaper with it.  27 percent replaced their radio.  20 percent use it as a gaming device and 19 percent use it for their internet service at home.  So the smartphone is becoming the ubiquitous device for the things that we do and this one machine, this one tablet or smartphone does what a number of other devices used to do. 

Remember in the kitchen you used to have a ton of different devices, one for making a hamburger and one for making waffles or whatever.  Now you just have a microwave or some other device and it makes all of that stuff for you.  So the day is coming for the all-in-one device and that will have an effect on print in some way, so anything that can go electronic is probably going to go electronic, so we have to look for those products that are not going to go electronic or need a print component for some reason.  And that’s my opinion.