A new report from RBC Capital Markets suggests Facebook will overake Google in garnering unique visitors in 2011.

The sites currently drive traffic to one another, but RBC analyst Ross Sandler notes that the harmonious relationship could easily change as Facebook strives for a business model. Google's compound growth rate is 20 per cent, while Facebook's is 85 per cent.

Sandler sees Facebook as a larger starting point for people online, that it is directing more people to other sites than Google, and as a result could become a more formidable entity.

Media economist Robert Picard, normally a serene voice on the challenges and dynamics of journalism, offers a fair dose of tough love in his latest post.

"Maybe it’s about time that journalists stop whining about their troubles and initiate some internal discussions about how their own newsrooms are structured and operated."

He takes the sword and swashbuckles through data suggesting there are far more, not far fewer journalists than there were three decades ago. What he doesn't perceive are generous helpings of high quality. Rather, the assignment of journalists is increasingly into coverage people don't argue they'd miss if lost --- in other words, things he thinks aren't essential at the expense of things he thinks are.

He takes the sword and moves it fairly close to personal vital organs in suggesting that not everyone has suffered equally in the business --- managers and supervisors haven't been cut to the degree reporters have, for instance.

I'd argue a couple of things back. What else might anyone expect?

First, structure and operation keep many of us awake by night and involved by day. It's wrong to assume anything but. Almost every newsroom I know has used opportunity --- or sudden drama --- to reorient roles, mandates, functions and content. You can argue with the outcome, but shouldn't suggest there isn't effort or a process.

Second, the manager/supervisor of today isn't anything like one from five, 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Most I know have reacquired duties they didn't think they'd ever perform again. I'm not the staunchest defender of managers, despite being one, but I think they're expected today to lead and participate in far flatter organizations with greater collaboration than ever.

Editor & Publisher has new data on the growth in unique visitors at the top 30 newspaper Web sites in the U.S., and the news is good. More than half  experienced double-digit growth still.

The Nielsen Online data suggests hefty year-over-year growth at such sites as USAToday.com, LATimes.com, New York Daily News and Orlando Sentinel. Interestingly, washingtonpost.com dropped, perhaps the result of post-election diminished interest in political news.

The unique-visitor metric is an important one in assessing site value for advertisers, as are overall page views and time spent.

The Los Angeles Times and latimes.com are staging a three-day point-counterpoint on the future of newspapers, with Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis and Reflections of a Newsosaur's Alan Mutter providing their views.

Judging from day one, the two top journalists are keeping their A games in their backpockets. It's pretty much a sense of rehash for them, with Mutter noting that print media will need to get niche-oriented and innovate, and Jarvis suggesting that he doesn't care about the future of the paper but the future of journalism.

One presumes Day Two and Day Three will be livelier and give the audience something more than what they've given their online audiences earlier.

Wall Street Journal reports today that Google and the advertising giant WPP are jointly financing a three-year, $4.6-million initiative that examines the relationship between consumer choices and online advertising.

The measure is designed to encourage greater spending in the online sphere and greater understanding of what works --- and doesn't --- in it.

Online pioneer Dave Winer discusses in his latest blog posting the void journalists leave and how it will be filled. He muses about the fear that what's being lost from newspaper journalism is lost permanently.

Not so, he asserts. The experts will fill the bucket, just as technology experts filled the bucket a decade ago when he shifted into online tech coverage. His prediction: "It will happen everywhere, in politics, education, the military, health, science, you name it. The sources will fill in where we used to need journalists."

And he has an interesting piece of advice for educators --- and not just journalism educators: Everyone needs to be taught about journalism, because in the time ahead everyone will be one.

Academic/author Mark Deuze talks in his blog about the emerging "weightlessness" of the economy in the context of journalism challenges.

Meaning: We are moving from permanent employees producing a commodity in fixed places to one of a more fluid series of ideas floating across platforms from varying contributors and collaborators.

"Journalism is losing weight. Its weight is its workforce, and with that the remaining labor protections that still governed the profession. That is the real tragedy of the end of newspapers."

In his blog, academic/author Mark Deuze discusses an interesting point about the transformation of the news industry: The impact of the workforce changes and the arrival of a "weightless" economy.

The meaning behind that: We are moving from producing fixed commodities in fixed places with permanent employees to one of more fluid ideas floating across platforms from portable contributors.

Thus, the "weight" of journalism is a component of the industry restructuring. 

'Journalism is losing weight. Its weight is its workforce, and with that the remaining labor protections that still governed the profession. That is the real tragedy of the end of newspapers"

TechPresident identifies three essentials for the time ahead in online journalism.

1. Make news easier to make together. We need better tools of collaboration.
2. Make visualization tools easier to use. Targeted investment in them would help foster more journalism.
3. Make it easier to share investigative work.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer prints its final edition Monday evening and starts the instant after as strictly seattlepi.com.

The Hearst-owned outlet employs about 180 people and will employ 40 in the morning, including 20 in the newsroom under executive producer Michelle Nicolosi, who promises a different way ahead with a revamped site.

The P-I becomes the largest newspaper to move to an online-only operation and its successes and struggles will be scrutinized likely more than any other outlet its size in the western world.

Nostalgia is deserved. Its 146 years of publishing is no small accomplishment. When any media perish, the loss applies to a committed community of contributors and consumers. In other words, journalists and other newspaper employees lose something, but so does the audience, in terms of a shared experience.

In its stead are promised a strong form of community engagement, a more flexible production team, and a theme of innovation. A successful seattlepi.com will be a model, and at this stage, most everyone is looking for a successful model. Who wouldn't wish them well, all the while regretting so many others can't make the trip?

Below is a newsroom video featuring the P-I publisher, Roger Oglesby, on the final edition.