After nearly half a decade as chief executive officer and publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, Chris Schroeder in January was appointed vice president for strategy at The Washington Post Company. He joined that company in 1995, was elected its treasurer a year later, and served as president of Legi-Slate, Inc. (which he reorganized and sold) before taking the helm of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive in 1999.

Schroeder believes advertising is a business model that can work for news Web sites. "I have very little doubt that the major brands will become stronger and stronger. Major branded advertisers certainly recognize that. They know that they can use newspapers to reach a high-quality audience."

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, Schroeder said, has recently seen 30 percent year-to-year growth in its general advertising revenues. "Maintaining that rate will be challenging in years to come," he said. "The online newspaper industry went after low-hanging fruit during most of its time. We have to do a better job of targeting advertising." He says that's the major reason why the Post and other newspapers have started consumer registration programs.

"The other place I see opportunity is the search space. Local online advertising is more akin to the Yellow Pages. There are much bigger opportunities for newspapers there."

He also thinks that newspapers someday might be able to charge for their online content, but not yet. "We face two challenges. The first is obvious: Consumers already get enough that is free. The second is a lot of people are already paying -- but paying their ISPs."

Schroeder has been traveling to Asia and Europe to study how consumers there use Internet access on mobile phones. "I can't think of why what they do won't eventually also happen in North America. It's just common sense. People will want instant access to the news at any time. Its time has come.

"And if you had asked me a year ago about digital editions, I would have told you they were the wrong direction for newspapers -- I thought that putting out a PDF file made no sense at all. But I've changed my mind about them. Digital edition technologies are becoming easier and easier. Most of all, consumers seem to like the visual layout component of a newspaper.

"So, we're now experimenting with digital editions for the Post and for Newsweek's tab," Schroeder said. "These experiments are also more interesting and intriguing to the circulation department: They're thinking of the day when subscribers will take a digital edition rather than a printed one."