I was in Egypt for 10 days combining training 21 journalists from eight Arab countries on water and land with holidaying along the pyramids and tomb complexes of Ramseses, Isis and other kings of 3000-5000 ago (more on the is to follow). In the plane on 21 January 2009 I picked up the International Herald Tribune with the extra pages of news and analysis from Obama’s glorious inauguration.

In the same issue there was an interesting story on a start-up The Printing Blog that has started reprinting blog posts on paper surrounded by local ads in Chicago. From three distribution points it launched the free issue web zine on paper.  The IHT reported that 300 bloggers have given The Printed Blog permission to publish their work for a share of the ad revenue. Founder and publisher Joshua Karp aims to sell 200 ads per issue, 15 signed up for the first issue. Initially publishing weekly Karp aims to eventually publish free hyper-local neighbourhood editions twice a day in many U.S. cities.

The print world will watch this interesting venture closely!