Print vs. online or why you should team up with your opponent

Online supposedly is print's worst enemy. Long time readers become online users who don't want to spend money on paper products (but prefer to spend money on high speed internet flatrates...). Companies spend their money on online campaigns, not print runs. Poor print folks. 

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer - right. So let's think about teaming up as an option. I'm not talking about your bread & butter website which accompanies your print product. I'm talking about using online specific content in print products. Think about paper magazines and their attraction to online users. Hey, it's still cool to be in a magazine, for example with your latest blog entry, or a quote about a product, or with a screenshot of your impressively detailed user profile. You could show it around even there where's no internet. Or where a small iPhone display would hide more than it could reveal. 

Or think about the reputation and publictiy many paper products still have. Collaborate with your online users, listen to them - and offer them an additional forum by publishing their sorrows in your paper. Collaboration with your online community should not stop at the front step of your print publication. Instead, open the doors widely and welcome your users. Let them participate, the more the better. Create tools, that make it as easy as possible to directly become part of a print product. It should be easy for writers and editors as well to find useful user generated content for their work. So let print and online team up. If you can't beat them, join them.