No matter what people say, print publishing is gasping its last breaths and the recession is rooting around for the life support plug. The new rule is: everything for everyone — no matter who or where they are.

As internet creator Sir Tim Berners Lee flipped on the switch for the world wide web in 1991, he had an inkling that it would lead to a global business revolution — and so along comes the demise of the mass print media and advertising markets. It was the shortest life span of any market in the history of man.

The web’s ability to be the proverbial sniper, to print’s weapon of mass destruction, makes it so much more attractive to advertisers who crave fast, high quality results for their limited budgets.

An example of the ‘long tail’ market that is replacing the mass market is that of my fictional hero, Romano, and his “Alfa Anti-Ruggine” — a device made specifically for the 1974 Alfa Romeo Spyder to keep it rust free (remember, it is fictional).

The old market model would have Romano pay tens of thousands of dollars for the pleasure of waiting for weeks while publications were printed and distributed with his advert in them. He would then have to replicate the process dozens of times around the world to cover his markets properly — all on an off chance that an owner of a such a classic car in need of his product would see the ad. If Romano were really, really lucky, he may have had some positive coverage in one of the magazines.

The new model has Romano’s company sell the product on eBay or an Amazon type site for a few percentage points in commissions. Romano’s company would also buy some Google keywords to make sure that the thousands of people searching for ‘1974 Alfa repairs’ would find it easily. These avenues are instant, highly targeted, cost effective and global.

Importantly for Romano’s “Alfa Anti-Ruggine”, his customers could be members of an Alfa group on social networking, site such as Facebook, or could even be a writers of the Argentinean or Norwegian Alfa blogs — giving them an ideal outlet to write about and discuss the miracle cure that stops their cars falling apart. Romano could then freely use these testimonials, enhancing his products credibility and saleability. How very Web 2.0.

¡Viva la revolucón!

Welcome to Web 3.0. It’s here, right now — and it’s all about semantics and content with context. What if our Argentinean or Norwegian Alfa owner is a racing buff? Facts, such as how many Alfas won races 1974, would probably interest him. That information is out there and this is where data linking — or semantics — opens up limitless possibilities.

Crucially, it would bring advertisers directly to customers surfing for information that holds a deep personal interest for them. Imagine our car buff, while looking for the antirust gadget he had recently read about on a blog, mouses over the phrase “1974 Alfa” and a poster of an Alfa winning the 1974 Canadian-American Challenge Cup slides out? Or, perhaps a framed poster of a car just like his, but in its prime and rust free? It is conceivable that a purchase would be made.

Publishers still hold the aces: they are (mostly) respected authorities in their fields and, essentially, have extensive archives of quality content that can be exploited for its semantic value. This is the new big traffic driver. Content is also being constantly updated and created — adding to the giant jigsaw puzzle. All of this gets married to advertising — be it banner networks or Google AdSense — the more pages, the more views, the more revenue.

The way to get our hero and his car parts business back into magazines is by providing a platform that enables him to effectively and directly target consumers — those readers that the publishers should know so well.

At the same time, intelligent targeting and a tightly wound online brand awareness campaign will increase traffic and at the same time convert print readers to online — reducing overheads and increasing revenues-per-reader.

This will all lead to a much deeper relationship between publishers, advertisers and readers — and everyone gets precisely what they want.