Thanks to Steve Rubel over at MicroPersuasion for pointing to this post about the Washington Post’s efforts to create a two-way dialogue with their newspaper – or, more precisely, their web site.

And they’ve found a way to monetize (I love that word) their social media experiment, as well. According to blogger Colin Delany, The Post.com has now formed its own blog ad network – finding a way to push ad revenues back to bloggers who bond with the site.

Another Delany – Ian Delany, to be precise – provides an interesting list of things newspapers should consider doing to more fully embrace social/online media. In his twopointouch blog, Ian refers to this piece by the Bivings Report which relayed the best practices of leading US newspapers.

The list of suggestions include practical things like “start using tags” and “use full RSS feeds” as well as comments from users like “open up your archives.” In essence, the recommendations seem to be that newspapers should be more like blogs. (View the entire list here.)

That’s a surprise coming from a bunch of online commentators who write blogs, isn’t it?

But while everything focuses on the web site and usability of the online media, there’s nothing said about the evolution of the newspaper that’s delivered to the home or still sold on the newstand. In fact, it’s interesting to note that with all the posts (like this) that talk about increasing interactivity of newspaper web sites (there are hundreds posted every day), I could find only three blog posts on the future of newspaper design.

Why is this relevant?

History tells us that no media is ever fully replaced by a new interloper. As much as some might like to think that print media is dead, the fact remains that it’s a huge industry. Larger than online. And it can’t be ignored as much as some might want to.

Newspapers, in particular, are particularly due for an overhaul. Canada’s Daily Pixel blog had an interesting post on newspaper design that’s worth a read. But I’m interesting in hearing more about what others might have to say.

Let me know.

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