The interesting thing to think about is whether or not it would be smart to delay the migration to a Web-only press by somehow building a bridge between online and print, or do we just blow up the bridge altogether? Prolonging the inevitable future may end up biting the industry in the arse sooner than later. But while print may be on its way out the door, it certainly isn’t a bad time to try any new ideas, whatever the risk may be.

There is such a wide gap between most newspaper readers and most online consumers, especially I think in Florida, that the opinions of each get reacted to without much examination of the sociological and anthropological factors of each group.

I see organizations like yours as having a great potential to be the glue of these communities and to fulfill the social promise of journalistic ideals.

There will come a time when WiFi e-paper makes this conversation moot, but until then I would suggest an alternate means of interplay that solves the issues.

Yes, harvesting comments for publication next day seems interesting, but it is also one way. How about getting people on the receiving end of your print product to be the instigators of comments and conversations by using another ubiquitous technology – the Mobile platform?

Publish a ‘comments-line’ option for the section and a phone number to call. Nation is 425, Local news is 413, etc. and run speech to text ( a large number of highly accurate services exist for this) on the phone call. Publishing these opinions online would be good, but more importantly, it gets the mouth moving.

Editorial staff can quickly correct the spelling mistakes for the two or three comments they decide to publish in the print product, but the person reading the paper can have an immediate way to start talking about the story, and if they are in a public place, I’ll bet the opinion expressed wil become known as an invitation to start a real conversation right then and there with anyone in earshot.

Since a lot of a site’s traffic will come from search engines, at that level, every page is “the front page.”

At my paper (Harrisburg Patriot-News), we have a phone number set up for readers to anonymously call in and opine on a sports issue for a sentence or two. It’s infuriating, it’s low-brow, it’s delicious and it’s the first thing everyone turns to. It feels like the most human part of the paper, and your idea would accomplish the same. Maybe even in a more sophisticated way.

I imagine you’d meet some resistance — news/editorial! Those people who comment are idiots! — but this is the kind of what-do-we-have-to-lose idea that newspapers should be cranking out.