• by Masha Geller , April 4, 2003

Since the web has firmly established itself as a primary source of news for so many Americans in these last few weeks, it was only a matter of time before publishers started milking it for all it's worth.

They're not just making their content available online anymore, they're making that content better (at least for those of us with broadband connections.)

According to Canada's CanWest Global Communications' COO Richard Camilleri, CanWest will soon roll out electronic versions of its newspapers with embedded video linked to features including weather pages and advertising.

Camillieri said that the classified advertising section of the newspapers is an area that could benefit from video enhancements, as well as retail advertisers, who could expand their reach by having television advertisements placed directly onto a newspaper page displayed on the subscribers' compute.

The move makes perfect sense for CanWest, which was solely a broadcaster until late 2000 when it bought the chain of daily and weekly newspapers from Hollinger Inc. Cross-promotion and cross-selling have been the cornerstones of the company's convergence strategy ever since.

Granted, he was speaking to the Canadian Media Directors' Council, but I'll bet we won't have to wait too long for similar developments in the U.S. Just something to look forward to.