Is this the future of newspapers?

Every night this week on the nightly news we’ve seen stories about newspapers laying people off, going bankrupt or about to (Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle) or even worse just plain ending publication (Rocky Mountain News).

So what is the answer, what is the new model?  Is it Newsday’s decision to start charging people to view online content?   Or is it a different model like the folks at PressDisplay.com tweeted to me this week.

In the PressDisplay.com model, you can sign up for daily or monthly paid subscriptions to view the actual newspaper online, ads and all.  This is great for us tweeners who get news on the web but still love the actual form of the old newspaper.

In addition, there are great search functions built in and the ability to download issues, save pages, share them with others, blog on them, etc.

While this model may not be perfect, it may be a stepping stone.  As others will more than likely follow the Newsday model, those of use who long for at least the look (forget about the feel) of newspaper will likely migrate to services like PressDisplay.com to get their faux-paper fix.