Google's Chief Economist: The iPad Is Not Going To Save Newspapers

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Devices like Apple's iPad may help newspapers and traditional publishers, but only significant evolution will save them, Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, said in a talk with journalism students at UC Berkeley.

"The future of news may lie in harnessing these kinds of devices," Mr. Varian said at UC's Graduate School of Journalism. "Users will likely engage with the tablet during peak leisure hours, and you would imagine that's very attractive to publishers."

But given the music industry's uneasy relationship with iTunes, which wrenched control over packaging and pricing away from the record labels, should publishers think twice before jumping into bed with Apple?

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