Mark Glaser provides good information about online publishing. This is from his Online Publishing Association newsletter.

"InternetNews reported that Google had applied for a patent called "Method for searching media," which could signal that Google News will bring in money by indexing print magazines and newspapers and then charging a subscription cost for viewing them. The patent also mentions a technique for allowing publishers to serve new ads into archived pages."

Go take a look at "EPIC 2014" the flash movie that presents a possible scenario for the development of news media in the near-term future where Googlezon, the algorithm powered searching giant beats any and all legacy news businesses as the news tool of choice. It seems fanciful, and there are lots of flaws in the little movie, but there might be some truth to it, too, in light of this new patent and the direction Google is moving in.