I should perhaps have entitled this post "How the web is changing newsreading habits, chapter xxx", but I've quite forgotten which chapter we're on. In any case, here's an interesting snapshot from Fred Wilson:

The Gotham Gal has been religious about reading the NY Times in paper and doing the crossword as 'dessert' as long as I've known her (28 yrs now)... So this past year, during the presidential election, when she went online 5x per day to see what was going on, you'd think shed have gone to the nytimes.com.

But she didn't. She went to Huffpo. And that habit has not changed since early November. She reads the paper in the morning as always and then checks in with her trusted blogs and web news services throughout the day and evening, like the trader who reads the WSJ in paper form on the train in and then hangs out on his/her Bloomberg all day long. I've asked her to post on all the online news sources she checks every day and she just did that. Here it is. ....

...it teaches me some important things. First, the mainstream newspaper reader is just making this transition to intraday news consumption now. Second, they will not blindly follow their offline brand loyalty when they go online. And most importantly, publishing news online is fundamentally different from publishing news offline. Do check out the full post here.