Jevon is asking powerful questions about the future of blogging in the post preceding this.

He asks what will be its future now that the attention is swtiching to more interactive and immediate tools such asd Twitter.

I would like to add to Jevon’s question by asking “What will happen when maintream News – TV, Radio and Newspapers die in the next 2 years?” I think the Twitter – Blogging issue may end up being a subset of this larger question.

Die! That’s a big statement to make. Here is the one of the best commentators on Media today, Diane Mermigas with her reasons why death may indeed be imminent:

In other words, much of digital media is about to turn into a freebie. The entertainment and media players banking on profits from discretionary purchases and high-margin extras are being confronted by more than recessionary pricing and cost concerns. This could be another dramatic about-face for digitally empowered consumers with easily accessible and cheap alternatives.

DVR penetration in 34% of households and broadband penetration in about 84% of all U.S. homes already make it cheaper to access entertainment. Even as the broadcast networks’ combined prime-time ratings continue to fall 13% this season, Americans are watching more so-called “television” than ever before–an average 142 hours per TV monthly, according to Nielsen Media–but it’s more diverse entertainment than standard TV programs.

Ubiquitous, free broadband has expanded conventional “TV viewing” on universal screens to include streaming videos on Hulu and YouTube or Facebook and MySpace, online games and even illegal movie downloads.

Google–including YouTube–has a 44% share of online video viewing, according to October 2008 figures from comScore. It may be that social networking will become a substitute for more traditional TV and movie viewing. Other free Web alternatives abound–from free audio (Pandora), free video (YouTube), free news (NYtimes.com), and free sports (Espn.com) to information (Wikipedia), and games (MSN and Club Penguin Games). The audience for individual game sites is an estimated 375 million worldwide (as much as 125 million in the U.S.), representing an exploding, ad-supported free alternative to conventional TV viewing.

The bottom line: the global economic crisis will sharply accelerate incrementally free content consumption that will send media and entertainment companies, already vexed by digital change, into a monetization meltdown.

This trend – combined with the drop in advertising – the switch to online for advertisers anf the high ongoing costs of the mainstream – means that it is indeed in its death throes.

So will there just be a vacuum?

The tools – Twitter – Blogging – Video – are all there for the real “New media”. It is all dispersed right now. What will be the new form of media? For surely we do want to be informed?

My bet is that the successful new will start with the “reader” first versus the producer. My bet is that the new will be some kind of personal all purpose aggregator. There are hints of it around now.

I use Tweetdeck to filter groups and issues on Twitter – Twitter is my first choice for news.

I use Reader to do the same for the blogs that I follow.

What do you think will fill the gap in the forest left by the fall of Big Media?