No presses are required for purely electronic publishing, and over time, this new distribution system will have as-yet-unknown effects on the traditional publishing world.

WSJ: On the Web, Amateurs Rivaling Professionals

Incentives or compulsory licenses should be put in place to encourage publishing companies to move to new distribution and pricing models.

ECONOMIST: Letters

For starters, content creators need to start thinking of themselves more as publishing engines that can drive content creation, distribution and consumption in an innovative and scalable way.

FORBES: How Publishers Can Ready Themselves For Digital Media's Evolution

The self-publishing era has put a premium on quality content development and distribution.

FORBES: The Self-Publishing Era Creates Quandary for Brands

It now has every bit of distribution that is regarded as essential: publishing, movie and television production, music, a small television-broadcast network, cable systems and cable networks.

ECONOMIST: One house, many windows | The

The biggest: a dramatic shift away from slow-growth newspaper publishing, leaving the company to focus more on its higher-margin entertainment and digital-distribution properties.

FORBES: How News Corp. Will Change After the Hacking Scandal

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