Over the past 18 months the firm has bought nine companies including an online self-publishing site, a financial-data firm and one with a technology that newspapers can license for an online-payment system.

ECONOMIST: An industry that puts ink to paper is fighting for survival

At the same time, apprehensive publishers were faced with the issue of relevance, just as they later would face the relevance question when contemplating social distribution -- and, indeed, as newspapers had already faced with the apparent necessity of publishing on the internet at all when it became popular.

ENGADGET: The outrage and sadness of Google Reader's demise