• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 16, 2007

Sound the death knell. Last week, Time Inc. announced that the Web site of TeenPeople.com would be absorbed by People.com, effectively closing the online presence of an Internet-only publication.

TeenPeople.com was all that remained of the once-vaunted magazine brand after the print edition closed in 2006. At the time, executives vowed the magazine would live on in its Web incarnation. But with its closing, Time Inc. decided that even the Web presence wasn't profitable enough.

When the first announcement of a Web-only publication was made, it elicited skepticism from Samir Husni, a professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi, better known as Mr. Magazine. "The beauty of the Web is it gives magazine publishers the excuse 'we're not killing the thing, we're staying on the Web.' If magazines could survive on the Web, don't you think Playboy would have folded its print edition long ago?" he asks.

Citing the TeenPeople.com demise, Husni says he believes that a print pub's move to online-only is the kiss of death. "It may not happen all of sudden--some survive longer. But sooner or later, they will die."

TeenPeople.com's Web traffic fell 50% from 435,000 in March 2006 to 218,000 in March 2007.

While the economics of online publication might be superficially attractive, the competition is greater. As challenging as maintaining a print publication may be, Husni noted on his blog, it's still a must for magazine brands. "The Web is a great place to be, but it is not print and should not replicate the print editions of the magazines."

The demise of TeenPeople, at one time sold on every newsstand in America, may have troubling implications for other magazines that have shifted to online-only status. So far in 2007, Premiere and Child have moved to online-only, while 2006 saw, among others, ElleGirl and FHM migrate to the Web.