Newspapers are producing new applications for Apple's iPad in the hope they provide more significant per-reader advertising revenue and, perhaps, more significant per-reader subscription revenue.

But The Economist notes it's not yet a match made in heaven. There are several challenges as papers enter the app age. Apple is making it difficult to sell subscriptions (the other day word surfaced that Apple is going to take a 30% cut on such revenue) and is reluctant to say much about buyers (frustrating for publications that want to cross-sell into other services).

Another dilemma is what to do about existing free Web services --- wall them off, curtail their offerings, retire their development?

The Economist suggests that publishers are hoping another device, perhaps with Google's Android operating system, emerges and gives them some leverage over Apple.

Almost the instant Google unfurled Google Instant, some were surmising that the era of search engine optimization was over --- that, in effect, the technique many publishers tried to master to please Google's algorithm was killed by the company that made everyone master the technique.

It has been interesting to watch the trajectory of the discussion on this. Google introduced Instant in mid-week as a way of anticipating what you're searching for and (like Apple's anticipatory spelling program for its iPhone and iPad) getting you to that search term more quickly --- or, arraying some nearby options to choose out of a drop-down list. It's a sort of result-before-you-type-it mentality.

But some saw it as Google predicting the outcome based on your previous activities and, in Steve Rubel's words, no two people ever getting the same result. The feedback from Google Instant would make you tweak your search in midstream, he (who deserves great respect for his investment in this field) and others argued.

Obviously, SEO isn't dead. Nor is the Web, as Wired provocatively stated last month. Nor are newspapers, as more than a few have been stating for years. But the challenge is to understand how something like Google Instant changes the game and contributes evolution. In playing with it a bit this week --- I'm not a big personal searcher, but I'm a big professional searcher --- I found its intuitive function good, but not as efficient as my own typing for the term I originally wanted. The real-time feedback isn't swift enough, I found, to move me off my first plan.

It's going to take more time to understand the consequences, though. Those early impressions may shift as Google weedles into my searches more often and understands my patterns. For many it will be a welcome addition to the massive reference volume of the Internet. Whether it makes irrelevant the effort to optimize content to get search results that drive traffic is an open question.

The shift of searching to getting is at the heart of the Wired.com pair of pieces that identify the decline of the World Wide Web and the rise of the application in our digital lives.

Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff, one a prominent editor and the other a prominent columnist, have produced companion arguments that the Web is no longer what we use --- that the Internet is a mere conduit for the apps that dominate our time online.

"It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule," Anderson writes. "And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen)."

That it's also a more optimal environment for monetization only strengthens the situation, he says.

Wolff, meanwhile, examines how the open Web is closing and reestablishing a corporate hierarchy --- the "collectivist utopianism" is disappearing and a top-down theme is reemerging. The alternative to the Web came as some entrepreneurs sought to have the clout of Google, only without the open-source approach.

Wolff's piece is far more critical of the developments --- of the value of advertising, of the value of the audience, because of search engine optimization. He says we flirted briefly with the "transformative effects" of the Web but now are "returning home" to Apple, Facebook, Spotify and Netflix, all systems that are closed and traditional.

Anderson's conclusion: Blame Us. Wolff's: Blame Them.

Next Issue Media released a study today indicating the U.S. periodical business can recognize $3 billion in interactive revenue by 2014. It's a prediction predicated on some challenging assumptions --- lots of devices, lots of familiarity, touchscreens and colour --- but the Oliver Wyman study identifies some major gains ahead for 230 periodicals:

1. Higher renewal rates of subscriptions if an interactive edition is available --- 64% instead of 55%.
2. Greater revenue from bundled print/interactive packages, something consumers so far like.
3. Bill-me-later interactive editions heavily reduce churn rates to 25% from 45%, again yielding greater revenue.
4. Cross-selling advertising through recommendation engines through the editions will drive revenue from other products.
5. Availability of interactive editions will triple uptake from non-subscribers to the print periodical, to 15% from 5%.

The study nevertheless indicates some immense challenges for publishers: devices need to be encouraged, archival material made available, workflows changed, partnerships established, among other things.

The Wall Street Journal extracted pretty much everything there is to extract from Eric Schmidt, the Google CEO, on the direction and challenges of media. Holman W. Jenkins Jr.'s extensive feature gives over much:

1. Google's focus is ensuring it doesn't lose its strangehold on Web advertising when searching is no longer as necessary.
2. It doesn't mind giving away the operating systems for Android --- if you get a billion people using a device, Schmidt notes, you can do something with it.
3. Brands will matter in the time ahead, which is good news for an otherwise lamentable situation for U.S. newspapers.
4. Targeted ads are the only way Schmidt sees salvation in what ails media economically.
5. Serendipity, that great surprise factor for the media consumer, now can be replicated electronically.

Are we moving toward an Ultranet? A possible clue is to be found in Google's public statement today on its discussion with the large U.S. telecom Verizon.

In it, Google and Verizon make clear their support for Net neutrality, meaning basic and equitable access for all, lots of transparency for consumers (except in the wireless field, which is moving rapidly and requires a little more secrecy, they feel), and a widening of broadband availability to communities.

But it also suggests that the broadband infrastructure needs to be a "platform for innovation," not necessarily on the same platform we now receive, for such areas as health services, new entertainment and gaming services, and a so-called "smart grid."

Google and Verizon indicate they want the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to keep close tabs on this "differentiated Internet" proposal. Still, it's the first indication (apart from a New York Times story last week, denied in part) that another layer of digital access and service might be pursued.

In recent days the world's largest Internet company has pushed back on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's proposed approaches on journalism in the digital age. In effect Google has told the FTC it is overreacting in the evolution of journalism and its business models.

The FTC staff report, for instance, had proposed restrictions on so-called "hot news" to restrict how much material from one source could be repurposed by others. Google just doesn't agree, nor does it support taxes to strengthen news organizations or proposals that would charge aggregators to carry content.

Rather, Google views the transformation of business models as an event that should not include meddling. It is up to organizations and the market to figure it out, not for government to ride to any rescue of the status quo. It notes that creators can already keep their content from being indexed if they wish, but it also notes that its search engine drives readership and consumption to those sites --- and ultimately, advertising and revenue.

"Maximizing the monetization of online traffic will require innovation and experimentation," it notes in its submission to the FTC.

But: "The ultimate solutions that will result in a new online equilibrium for the news industry cannot, however, be mandated by changes in the regulatory framework on in copyright laws."

Eric Schmidt, the Google CEO, spoke in London on Thursday and offered several media forecasts.

Mobile, cloud computing and networking are where the action is, he suggests, and newspapering will before long move to digital devices --- although they need to be more sophisticated and useable than the first ones.

The Internet was the most disruptive technology of all time, offering abundance and essentially turning everything on its ear, but Schmidt isn't ready to write off paywalls or suggest the algorithms that produce Google results are the end-all.

Indeed, he has been stating lately --- and did again Thursday --- that personalized news doesn't leave open serendipity. Advertising, though, will be much more personalized.

Rob Barrett, the longtime digital news executive, posts in the new eMedia Vitals site that news publishers have got to shed their anxiety about Google and learn to embrace the opportunities it provides.

People want to use search engines to find their content and it's incumbent on publishers to find ways to have their content found, Barrett says.

Regardless of concerns that Google makes money by supplying advertising adjacent to search results, he accepts that the benefits of the link economy outweigh any issues of Google benefiting. He rejects the notion of paywalls or other technological impediments for the audience to consume content.

The best response for publishers is to take advantage of Google "and take their content and advertising to where the largest audience lives," he argues.

Eric Schmidt is not the first one to say it, but the Google CEO's view is meaningful when he pronounces the smartphone as the future --- indeed, the equivalent of the arrival of the television in terms of elevating the knowledge base of parts of the world.

Web search, smartphones and translation software are the keys to that knowledge-building, Schmidt says in an interview with The Guardian in advance of a speech he's delivering this week.

At the moment, he believes the best engineering work is being conducted on developing applications and systems to deliver content across mobile devices.

"That's a big news thing – that's equivalent to the arrival of television," he says.