Print Media Deathwatch Update: Joshua Karp, founder and publisher of The Printed Blog, a Chicago newspaper startup that aggregated news blogs in print form, has announced that the newspaper is a money-loser and is shutting down:

It is with great sadness that I must report that, due to a lack of outside investment capital, The Printed Blog is ceasing publication.

Last year, I had an idea. I wondered what would happen if some of the business model principles that work online were applied to the troubled newspaper industry. The more I thought about it, the more the curiosity got to me. So I registered a domain name, developed an action plan, and started the process of building a new kind of newsprint publication.

Everyone said I was nuts, but I did it anyway.

16 issues, 80,000 print copies distributed, another 100,000 or so copies downloaded, and countless new friends, fans, and collaborators all around the world later, I may still be nuts, but I have zero regrets.

It’s getting harder and harder to see what value print can bring to new readers. People tend to worry the most about the conquering the costs of printing and distributing papers – but the cost in timeliness and interactivity may be the bigger challenges.

Do you think there’s still hope for newspapers?

via Bits