• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, April 7, 2010

The newspaper business has enough problems, coming out (maybe) from a five-year long decline which has roughly halved the medium's ad revenues over that period - and which even saw online ad revenues decline over the last two years. After all this, what fresh indignities could the media market possibly deal out? Here's a good one: sometime in the next few years, Americans will probably spend more money on virtual goods - that is to say, objects which don't actually exist outside the digital world - than newspapers get in online advertising. Forecasting 10% annual growth over the next three years, the newspaper industry will take in about $3.5 billion in online revenues in 2012. That same year, U.S. spending on virtual goods will reach $3.6 billion, according to Atul Bagga, a ThinkEquity analyst in San Francisco.