The world's great contextual magazine applies that technique to the quandary of the newspaper in its latest edition. It looks at the major technology that disrupted the newspaper more than 150 years ago, the telegraph.

The magazine examines how the arrival prompted fears of diminution, activity of change, and expectations of loss. It didn't work out that way. Newspapers didn't get contextual, because they were still the mass distribution vehicle. They still reported the latest information because the telegraph couldn't reach the large audience it could.

With the Internet, the Economist is brief but tries to draw a parallel: Until people have access to the news easily, the new technology won't gobble the old one. The demand for news will continue, perhaps even grow, as new technology enable access.

While the magazine is wrong about how no one has figured out how to make money in this environment, it does stress the point that any loss of medium is not the same as the loss of journalism.

It has been a busy few days in the life of the world's prime search engine and advertising vehicle, Google Inc., and the threads of change have been pulled together nicely by Jeff Jarvis in his latest post.

Mainly what Jarvis is pointing to is Google's evolution into a company that wants its search technology broadened and applied into the mobile environment. It is strengthening its search results.

But he's also demonstrating that the company is getting even more personal in its gathering and disseminating of information, perhaps to the edge of the envelope.

Among the areas of activity in recent days: the imminent acquisition of Yelp, the distribution of tags to businesses for augmented reality search, the seeping of news about the Google Phone and its capabilities, and the deeper understanding of the Google411 service and how the firm wants to move into the voice-activated search field big-time.

It's an enlightening post, typical for Buzzmachine.

Steve Smith posts at MinOnline four main predictions for the year ahead.

He thinks advertising is in a form of permanent decline, that it won't rebound in the year ahead as some suggest.

He believes the privacy issue will bite us. It's time, he suggests, for more transparency and accountability.

A mobile strategy will be necessary. If you want to play seriously, you'll need to be aggressive in this space.

And the pay-for-content model will remain elusive and time-consuming for publishers.

In the debate on whether to charge for content, some sites are moving into the so-called "freemium" model by offering content free and adding services for which they charge.

The premise is that basic content cannot be sold but additional features or functionality do offer such an opportunity. Bloomberg outlines how some sites view their evolution into services as the gateway to revenue generation.

Certainly in an era of commodified content, it is a challenge to find options for which users are willing to pay. The Bloomberg piece suggests that many big firms are betting big on freemium.

A new report from the respected Morgan Stanley financial house suggests a boom is coming in the mobile Internet, far larger and faster than the boom of desktop Internet was.

Within five years more users may be connecting to the Internet via mobile devices than by their PCs. The study notes the worldwide nature of growth (other Web developments were focused on the developing world) and the confluence of factors enhancing the experience.

The 3G arrival, social networking, online video, VOIP services and new devices are propelling the growth. Apple and Facebook applications are raising the bar. And emerging markets still have great mobile potential, the report says.

This is what Morgan Stanley calls the fifth technological cycle in 50 years and it is progressing at a very rapid rate.

Editor & Publisher, still publishing despite an announcement last week that it is folding, has unfurled an interview with tycoon Warren Buffett, who happens to own the Buffalo News.

In it, Buffett suggests it was a mistake not to have a business model when newspapers began moving content online. He doesn't offer up a remedy, but notes that something has to emerge to get greater digital revenue.

"I'm not positive what you would have done differently, but not figuring out some kind of business model was a mistake," he says.

Still, he falls short of suggesting the News will charge online. Rather, he laments that his ownership of the paper isn't rational.

Earl Wilkinson, the executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association, has issued his annual outlook for the newspaper-based industry.

It's called Last Minutes of Danger, Last Minutes of Opportunity for good reason: Wilkinson sees too much fiddling and not enough really new music in the way the business is transforming. The shifting sands of audiences now provide new platforms for consumers to make smarter choices.

"Writing more or selling harder won't produce the growth needed to fund the journalism that is the DNA of our industry," he says. "We have to change the rules. We have to restructure the people and technology at our disposal to serve smaller audiences more profitably."

The report is proprietary to INMA members (disclosure: I am one), but in broad outline it identifies strategies for publishers, how audiences need to be redefined, the challenge of advertising and the revenue and expense outlook for the business.

It suggests new thinking needs to be applied to the value of content across platforms, how consumers interact with news brands, whether there are other ways than brands to build value, and how the industry can sell marketing solutions.

Its tone is impatient in places. While Wilkinson sees great change in places, he also thinks the recession's economic distractions haven't served to reorient the business sustainably --- instead, the cost-cutting process took up the attention.

The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project produces some of the most interesting public opinion research on the impact of digital life. Many of its findings have application in the media business.

Its latest study examines the growing phenomenon of "sexting" among teenagers, the sharing of sexually suggestive images and text on mobile phones and devices.

Pew found 15 per cent of teens had received such images; only four per cent acknowledged sending such material. Teens surveyed indicated there was enormous pressure to participate in order to start or maintain relationships.

The study suggests such sharing is a form of relationship currency, and therein is one of the connections with media --- the notion that social networking participation requires a certain behaviour, that technology's capacity builds a pressure for a particular use.

In his latest post to Publishing 2.0, Mark Briggs summarizes a conference on online development and concludes the future is very much hooked into local.

It's an immature space, he hears, and there is sufficient scale to make a business out of it. Newspaper retrenchment, mobile emergence and the spoils will go to those organizations that connect local business with worthwhile content.

"But if you work for a local news organization that isn’t serving local businesses with innovative digital solutions, better buckle up," he writes.

Briggs spills out his notepad in the post, but it's a useful primary guide.

A new report from the respected Borrell Associates group indicates Americans still prefer print media --- and the Sunday newspaper and circulars in particular --- as the best medium when they use coupons.

Borrell indicates coupon use has gone up 36 per cent in the last year to a total of 70 per cent of all coupons.

Having said that, the company predicts Internet use will grow in the years ahead as newspapers taper off their dominance of the market. Even now, with only six per cent of the share of coupons, the Internet coupons amounted to 20 per cent of the total.