In a December 2008 survey by The Pew Research Center, 40% of respondents said they got most of their news about national and international issues from the Internet, up from just 24% in September 2007 (respondents were asked to name their top 2 news sources).
In contrast, only 35% identified newspapers as their primary news source. Pew said it was the first time since it started surveying that consumers relied more on the Internet for news than on newspapers.
But the Internet is still not numero uno - television was cited as the main source for national and international news by 70% of respondents.
However, even this is only true in the aggregate. Among younger respondents, the popularity of the Internet as a news source already rivals TV, with nearly 60% of Americans younger than 30 saying they got most of their national and international news online; the exact same percentage that said TV was their main news source.
Obviously, this is bad news for newspapers. Although good news for newspaper websites that keep up with the latest technologies.
From the standpoint of law firms, the writing on the wall is clear: static websites with stale content should be scrapped while dynamic websites and blogs that offer up fresh content to visitors on timely legal developments and trends on an ongoing basis should become the standard. Eventually all those young people migrating from TV to the Internet will become your clients.
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